I was thinking the very same thing. If it is a must to always bump up 
sort_mem before running restore why can't the restore utility do it? 
Take a portion of the currently available memory or ask a user 
interactively etc.


This would need to be a command line option, because there may be systems
on which bumping up sort_mem should not be done, for reasons unrelated to
performance during the restore, and the restore may not always be done
interactively.

If this can not be done then at least the sort_mem thing should be mentioned in Chapter 9. Backup and Restore in the PostgreSQL Administrator's Guide. http://www.varlena.com/varlena/GeneralBits/Tidbits/perf.html#sortmem too only slightly mentiones data dumps as opposed to "before running the restore" suggested by Tom.

Kaarel