A collateral contract is one where the parties to one contract enter into or promise to enter into another contract. Thus, the two contracts are connected and it maybe enforced even though it forms no constructive part of the original contract.or example, a collateral contract is formed when one party pays the other party a certain sum for entry into another contract. A collateral contract may be between one of the parties and a third party.
Using Large-Value Data Types. The max specifier expands the storage capabilities of the varchar, nvarchar, and varbinary data types. varchar(max), nvarchar(max), and varbinary(max) are collectively called large-value data types. You can use the large-value data types to store up to 2^31-1 bytes of data.
I guess you cannot index a VARCHAR(MAX)/NVARCHAR(MAX) column. coming back to your question: I dont think it is bad to use VARCHAR(MAX) is bad. If you are storing smaller piecs of data in a VARCHAR(MAX) column, it will be treated as normal. If you dont want to index the column, then you can definitely go with VARCHAR(MAX) option. But most people do not advise that. First of all, by having a VARCHAR(MAX) will confuse some one who looks at the data later on.