IDK about this angle, just because elasticsearch / SQL has fucky syntax doesn't mean that crafting queries in code is something we wanna say goodbye to?
I like what Google Malloy has done, it made writing things in code enjoyable by reinventing the syntax and language, but keeping it compatible with existing tech.
Otherwise this is cool! I found it daunting as a newcomer to search thinking about optimizing search and making sense of how users use it.
But even with elasticsearch, it was not that hard to craft queries to do a faceted search and it was cheap and easy to setup, so the value I see is more in the analysis. And if you're going beyond a faceted search with basic group and / or logic, then isn't vector searches the way to go anyway?
I'm probably missing something!