What is the general rule on these ... should they be avoided or is the
performance the same as writing one more complex query.

For example I have an audit/error table.  I have a few reports based
on this query.  I first create a query base to only gather records in
the date range.  I then have 5 different queries built on top of this
original query base.  These 5 queries all filter the data
differently.  I did not create this structure, but rather inherited
it.

That being said, I wanted to get the groups thoughts or experiences
with these types of queries.  Is it better to have one complex query
do all of the filtering, or is having queries built on top of queries.

Does this rule change when introducing sub queries to the mix (is it
better to have more queries, or less queries with sub queries built
in).

Thanks for any advice!!