Totally, and I know you are not alone. I think it's just a matter of boundaries, and when it comes to the data access layer of my applications I definitely want to feel very comfortable with the library I'm using. That's why SQLAlchemy is so popular, IMO, the implementation is rock-freekin-solid. The API may be more verbose, but you can understand it, and in doing so trust it to do the right thing.
Providing the things happening underneath don't break (and they haven't on me yet), and it generates efficient SQL (which is does), then I'll take the hidden complexity for the advantage of the higher level generator syntax.