> The mongodb syntax looks like it supports composing statements much more readily than SQL. It makes me wonder if there's been any serious work done making a query language that's fully as general as SQL, but is designed to be safely and easily composable so that you can build queries up from parts.

Haven't you noticed that it's exactly what the Sequel snippet does? It's also what SQLAlchemy's Expression Language does. It's a reification of SQL queries in the host language, so it can/should give pretty much all the tools of SQL.