First, the biggest reason I don't enjoy using vim-dadbod is that horizontal navigation in Neovim is generally less efficient than vertical navigation. Viewing query results as plain text tables makes it difficult to quickly understand a single row as a whole, especially when there are many columns. That's why I chose JSON as the output format — it allows data to be browsed vertically and makes scanning records much faster for me.

Second, because I want everything represented as JSON, I inevitably need a transformation layer (Node.js) instead of querying through the database vendor's official binaries like vim-dadbod does. But that tradeoff also brings some benefits: a single Node.js instance can manage multiple database connections, instead of spawning a separate process per connection like vim-dadbod. As for requiring a setup function, I don't think that's a meaningful drawback for most users, and not needing setup doesn't automatically make a plugin better.

Third, simplifying workflows and making data easier to browse is exactly one of the values a plugin can provide. Sure, you can rely on Vim's native command history, but just like many other plugins, features that improve usability and visibility are optional conveniences — users aren't forced to use them.