As with everything, it really depends on what you're doing. Do I want to implement an entire CMS and core business backend directly in SQL? No, of course I do

As with everything, it really depends on what you're doing. Do I want to implement an entire CMS and core business backend directly in SQL? No, of course I don't. I want to use Django's ORM because then I get all the nice QuerySet API, integrations with forms and filters, the nice Admin UI, etc. But do I want my end-users to hit my Django ORM APIs 10,000 times per second? Absolutely not. So you write hand-optimized SQL for those and maybe run them in a service a little bit faster than Python/Django/Gunicorn. It's the same database, it's the same "API". But you get the value of everything that Django's ORM provides and you just cheat a little bit by dropping down to the lower level for things that need it, and not everything needs it. Don't throw out the baby with the bath water!