Yea performance is the thing. You're correct that most of these queries can also be expressed in a relational DB.

The underlying data structures involved in Neo4J do help with performance on these kinds of queries, but in addition to that I find that for me the Cypher query language feels like a more concise and elegant way to ask for the data.

With RCTE it feels like I'm first asking the DB to construct a custom data structure, then I'm asking the DB to query that custom data-structure.

With Cypher it feels like I'm simply asking for the exact data I need by specifying the relationships and attribute characteristics that I care about.

This might just be a matter of taste, but if you start playing around with Cypher it just might grow on you.