The guy did notice why SQL "got popular", but he only noticed the tip of the iceberg. SQL "got popular" because it gives you tools to make your data store solve annoying problems for you, sort of like how programming languages give you the tools to make your compiler solve annoying problems for you. SQL "got popular" because, while there are of course differences between implementations, it was the closest thing to date to a common protocol to interface with the database. SQL "got popular" because it gives people the tools they need to directly poke around in the data without needing to write an application, a task that's often underestimated.

The "distaste" for SQL comes (as far as I can tell) from attempts to work around it. If you just want to write a Python program, SQL becomes just a bunch of boilerplate that you want to avoid. If you want software that does X, and you know how to use your database, it will help you enormously.