So, the affection I have for SQL is due to it being a gateway to a great idea; my frustration is that it's a bottleneck in getting to that same idea.
I have the opposite perspective. As a dev/manager, SQL is much more powerful at getting data storage from abstract concept, into a usable structure, than any programming language I've had the (mis)fortune of using. I've long since lost count of the massive volume of other people's code (especially ORMs) I've removed and replaced by updating SQL statements to do all the logic, and return me exactly what I want. And typically this also comes with a (sometimes massive) performance gain.
I've managed many a programmer that would complain that SQL is too hard and they don't want to learn it, but had no problem spending days learning the ORM of the month that "saves them time" and writing complex inscrutable monstrosities with them.
Could SQL be better? Absolutely. But in terms of bang-for-my-buck, I feel learning SQL has saved me more clock-time, and improved my productivity/value probably more than any other individual language in my career.
