At work we've got a LINQ query that gets passed around a few functions, eventually getting into a core of 60 lines of LINQ logic. Colleague verified that chaining selects produces different output, but gets ran at the same speed (Chain selects in order to somewhat declare variables, Select(x => new { x, y = <query-x> }) then you can Select(xy => new { use xy.y multplie times }))

Sometimes I think I should just be using sql.. (which we do on other projects)

Yeah, I've been pretty happy without ORM in node.js, I even wrote a semi-nice wrapper so I could turn template strings into parameterized queries. Made writing a bunch of migration scripts a cakewalk.

Sometimes it's really just easier to write SQL directly.