[zelphirkalt]

CEL seems very much in line with the Golang ideology. It looks like CEL doesn't really have any upsides at all, except for being non-turing-complete. It looks like it is more of a convenience food, for people, for whom any other syntax than what they know from mainstream programming languages is "too adventurous" or "too foreign". As if they cannot be trusted to be able to cope with another syntax. This might even be true, considering the character of Golang itself, which was created as a dumbed down lowest common denominator of several mainstream languages, so that everyone gets it. It was even missing generics for a long time, deeming them to be too complicated.

As a DSL CEL is kinda pointless, since it does not create any additional convenience beyond the usual mainstream programming language syntax. It therefore leaves potential on the table, and as a tradeoff appeals to familiarity of syntax. As a configuration language it is usable, probably with reduced risk, compared to using Golang itself (no turing-completeness!).

I don't think it actually appeals to anyone, who considers creating a DSL for a good reason.

[xyzzy_plugh]

You're missing the point of DSLs like CEL which is that they can easily be embedded. CEL is quite efficient and supports partial compilation and cost heuristics which makes it very cheap and easy to insert in a hot path that processes arbitrary customer data.