Maybe it's perception. I don't view ORM as a tool to make working with a database easier. In fact, it's harder to use but can have real advantages. For example, it would be nice to use raw SQL in our app but we have lots of reporting and data analysis functionality with support for custom grouping, filtering, etc... Composing queries on the fly with an ORM is trivial. On the other hand composing SQL strings or writing out manually the thousands of potential combinations would be very painful and brittle.

I also find ORMs are great for transactional updates where you are only modifying a few entities at a time. They really reduce the amount of boilerplate required (reducing errors) and allow you to use refactoring tools (find usages, etc..) to locate where a particular column is used in the code base.

So to me it's not about making SQL easier - because lets face it you have a complex translation layer there that requires full understanding. Rather it's about capturing those clear benefits.