>>the fact that even the couchdb team has changed their opinions on the right way to do it was not impressive

I don't get that. If they're working on improving something I didn't like that's something I'd appreciate.

CouchDB/PouchDB works great for how I'm using them but over the years I've observed that those coming from using SQL DBs can have a hard time with it.

I get that. But CouchDB is not designed to compete or replace SQL.

To me, it feels like CouchDB was not the right tool for the job you were doing. That's not a reason to dismiss it though.