As for the checklist, db design practice:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B352EB1F-D3CA-44EE-893E-9E07339C1F22&displaylang=en
As for the max rowsize:
http://qa.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/sjones/pagesize.asp
As for max. no of columns:
Take a look at BOL for 'Maximum capacity specifications
As for performance monitoring:
Sorry, there you need to wait for other members. I'm not too familiar with it.
HTH
--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]