> Really the problem here is SQL's syntax. If using a basic relational database was a pleasant experience that involved some familiar C-like syntax instead of broken English people would be more tempted to go with a DB instead of rolling their own.

I wish Postgres had a stable, more low-level API than SQL. Perhaps something that resembles the query plan I get from EXPLAIN. An application written against this API could implement an SQL DB: (1) parse SQL (2) implement a query planner that spits out a query plan written against this API.