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I can see many of the exploratory data analytic can be done without joins. Well, my experience could be too specific though.

Plenty useful -- we have SQL-like query tools at work (which operate on SSTables and ColumnIO) that I use extensively nearly everyday and I almost never do a join. Just SELECT and WHERE gets the job done 98% of the time for me.

For one, just indices in a strongly consistent distributed store, with ACID, is a big deal. Doing this yourself with another strongly consistent DB is a massive error prone PITA.