No no, it's not a good idea, but it's just the reality that I usually have to deal with. I wish I could lay down rules like "no analyst ever gets the rights to query the database directly," but all it takes is one analyst to be buddy-buddy with the company owner, and produce a few reports that have really high business value, and then next thing you know, that analyst has sysadmin rights to every database, and anybody who tries to be a barrier to that analyst's success is "slowing the business down."