[deepanchor]

As I understand it, ES and CQRS are somewhat orthogonal concepts (although they are indeed often used together). It's perfectly legitimate to implement CQRS without using event sourcing at all.

The only thing CQRS dictates is that a system's read models are separate from its write models.

[kitd]

That's very true, but the benefits of ES come on the write side of the equation. Expecting it to solve read-side problems will inevitably lead to disappointment.