I actually agree with you and find that writing queries directly gives better performance, is much easier to debug, makes it easier to integrate more advanced database features (like stored procedures or non-standard features like postgres schemas or the jsonb data-type), and avoids the configuration overhead that some ORMs require. In fact, I chose bookshelf precisely because I didn't have to do anything except supply the table name and start CRUDing whereas I'd normally just start writing raw queries in a situation where my goal was to start talking to the database ASAP.