I see awk as a DSL to be honest. Yes, it can be used as a general purpose language, but that quickly becomes, as you say, awkward :D

Like many DSLs, it is simple, fast and lightweight as long as it is used for it's intended purpose. Once you start using it for something else, these advantages evaporate pretty quickly, because then you have to essentially work around the DSL design to get it to do what you want.