[geographomics]

This isn't really true as the Windows event logs contain text as well as the other structured data, which you can search for using tools on the system. For example to search for some specific text in the system log using Powershell:

    Get-EventLog -LogName System | Where {$_.Message -Match "something"}

To process text as fields, as with awk, one would use the Split method (at least to start off with):

    Get-EventLog -Log System | Where {$_.Message -Match "something"} | %{ $_.Message.Split()[5,4] }

But as message text is often parameterised, it may be easier to take advantage of this data to get what you need. For instance, this command would extract the latest machine sleep and wake times from the system log, and calculate the duration:

    Get-EventLog -Log System -Source Microsoft-Windows-Power-Troubleshooter -InstanceID 1 | Select-Object @{n="SleepTime";e={$_.ReplacementStrings[0]}}, @{n="WakeTime";e={$_.ReplacementStrings[1]}}, @{n="SleepDuration";e={([DateTime]$_.ReplacementStrings[1])-([DateTime]$_.ReplacementStrings[0])}}

One can also sort and get unique values, just as in Unix-type systems - this command lists all drives defragmented in the past 30 days:

   Get-EventLog -Log Application -Source Microsoft-Windows-Defrag -InstanceID 258 -After (Get-Date).AddDays(-30) | Select @{n="Drive";e={$_.ReplacementStrings[1]}} | Sort Drive | Unique -AsString

So all the same capabilities are there, and then some. You just need to know your tools well enough to take advantage of it.

[thaumaturgy]

Most binary formats contain text; that isn't what distinguishes them from text formats.

One of the objections though is that with binary formats you're limited to the capabilities of the tools that have been built to handle that particular format, which you're illustrating nicely. In a binary format world, I would have to know the capabilities and limitation of dozens, maybe hundreds of different tools for extracting useful information from logs, instead of the small handful of tools I use to do the same job now, which can be applied to any log file formatted as plain text.

And that's assuming that all these other tools will be as powerful as Powershell, which isn't a bet I'd want to make.

madhouse has some fair points about the limitations of text logs, but "everything should be stored in binary formats" is a not a great idea. Actually, "a terrifying new hell" is probably closer to how I feel about it.

[geographomics]

In the case of wanting to stick to a text-only workflow, rather than taking advantage of the structured data features, then you only need a tool that converts the binary log format to your preferred text format. Which isn't too arduous. In systemd that would be journalctl, in Windows anything that can use the event log API such as Powershell or many other utilities.

The examples I posted above were just to show the equivalent capabilities in Powershell but really it's all flexible enough to use whatever you like.