SQL coding standard: SELECT * FROM ...

See the discussion on the dev list:
Is "SELECT * FROM ..." ok?
http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development/2009-February/thread.html#...

It seems there was a small consensus to discourage the use of SELECT * FROM ... in SQL queries.
However, I counted 120 such queries in Drupal 6, and close to 150 in Drupal 7.

This issue is about consolidating the consensus and defining better the SQL coding standard:
http://drupal.org/node/374660

It is posted in the Drupal issue queue for two reasons:
1) It is a coding standard that will affect primarily Drupal core (the code).
2) The best would be to use actual examples from Drupal core to see how related queries ought to be changed.