I've written many apps and I've never experienced what you've described. I write my queries to return exactly the right data in exactly the right format in exactly the right order—so I can go straight from the generic data structures to the screen interface or document layout.

Nothing says the structure which make sense for an application can't be a generic array of generic dictionaries.

If your favourite programming language forces you to go through the silly hoops of data mapping in order to do useful things with query output, I can understand why an ORM might make sense for you.