I don't feel any of those limitations using SQLAlchemy. Most projects just end up implementing a subset of ORM features poorly. I think your experience as an OR

I don't feel any of those limitations using SQLAlchemy. Most projects just end up implementing a subset of ORM features poorly. I think your experience as an ORM author and contributor may rather uniquely qualify you to write "a bit of DRY glue code". Good ORM lets you use a small slice of their features without any big performance hit in terms of development or actual. With a nice object model it just seems easier to remember and work with code. When I need complex SQL I just write a raw query... It is trivial and concise in any ORM to drop down to raw SQL when needed. I can agree they are no silver bullet, but a good ORM does so many chores for me I can't imagine bothering to do them myself, anymore when the pattern of using objects in my code and storing them in a SQL DB solves the problem at hand.