You would think that but having used both I find writing Kusto/KQL much smoother, neater and faster and if I have to choose between writing a query in either one I'd pick KQL.

I understand this is just an opinion but it's an opinion held by everyone in my org who writes both.

Theoretical correctness loses to pragmatism a lot and I'd read the KQL every day. Look at the examples at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/kusto/q... - look at the examples at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/write-q... and tell me they're not more readable than comparable SQL?

(I can see the result type both by hovering on the query but also by just looking at the end of it - and in SQL most of the SELECTed items in complex queries are from subqueries anyway - at least in my use case)