I was under the illusion that Big-O was always asymptotic complexity (ie worst case) and that other notations (little-o, big-omega, big-thetha etc) were used for best/average/etc case. Perhaps I'm wrong, however.
Which applies to random input? Nearly-sorted input? What's the overhead for a "short sort", can/should I use this to sort small sequences in a tight-ish loop or is it only for large sequences?
Indeed. The details matter.
My favourite example is how a naive linear search can perform better than a non-linear search with a better (in O() terms) algorithm if, for example, the linear search can do most of its work in cache (eg small input sizes or otherwise regular access patterns (predictable for prefetch)).
No, asymptotic notation only refers to the behaviour of the function (or algorithm) as you take the limit N->inf, e.g. changes to the size of the input. But the nature of the input often changes the behavior as well.
And then worst case? Best case? Average case? Which applies to random input? Nearly-sorted input? What's the overhead for a "short sort", can/should I use this to sort small sequences in a tight-ish loop or is it only for large sequences?