<listitem>
<para>
Only analyze relations that are missing statistics for a column, index
- expression, or extended statistics object. This option prevents
- <application>vacuumdb</application> from deleting existing statistics
- so that the query optimizer's choices do not become transiently worse.
+ expression, or extended statistics object. When used with
+ <option>--analyze-in-stages</option>, this option prevents
+ <application>vacuumdb</application> from temporarily replacing existing
+ statistics with ones generated with lower statistics targets, thus
+ avoiding transiently worse query optimizer choices.
</para>
<para>
This option can only be used in conjunction with