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Fergus Duniho writes:

What kind of performance issues are there? With a composite primary key, will it search individual keys until it finds a match instead of directly knowing where to go?

It is quicker to traverse a numeric key than an alpha or alpha-numeric. But it is not just a question of machine performance - development time including code production (manual and automated) and testing can be less efficient with composite primary keys. There is also the question of maintenance and the persistence of natural composite keys when compared to surrogate primary keys.

But this isn't the place to conduct a seminar in database design and I have already declared myself guilty of misapplying enterprise practice - it isn't easy, sometimes, to put aside work practices gleaned over 3 decades.