If "is now on-par (or better)" means usable then I'll agree. I'll also agree that you don't have to be an expert to use it. Sometimes having expertise is usef

If "is now on-par (or better)" means usable then I'll agree. I'll also agree that you don't have to be an expert to use it. Sometimes having expertise is useful. Prior to version 5+, I'd have called it unusable as the lack of real foreign key constraints (for instance) was simply unacceptable for real applications. The argument (by NoSQL proponents too) that the application has to check data constraints anyway might be true, but ending up with dirty data is the worst possible outcome. Check it in both the application and the database if you can.