[tracker1]

VS Code plugs into my DB just fine for writing SQL queries...

With an ORM, you can also over-query deeply nested related entities very easy... worse, you can then shove a 100mb+ json payload to the web client to use a fraction of.

[mrsmrtss]

That's just nonsense. It's trivial to make efficient projected queries with ORMs like EF. Nothing stops you doing stupid things with plain SQL either.

[tracker1]

No, but it does put you closer to the actual database and makes you think about what you're actually writing. You also aren't adding unnecessary latency and overhead to every query.

[pier25]

Better DX is not unnecessary.

Also the overhead of good ORMs is pretty minimal and won't make a difference in the vast majority of cases. If you find a bottleneck you can always use SQL.