I often have the same conversations regarding database technologies. With the rising popularity with NoSQL, many new developers have the opinion that it the right "tool" for every development project...
I'm going to play devil's advocate, and ask this question: why bother with creating or maintaining the ER diagram? What purpose does it serve after the very initial design...
The biggest miss from Microsoft is failing to give the typical consumer what they really want. They were late to the phone and fell flat when they got there...
What SQL Server doesn't do well (or at all) is true active-active clustering for the purpose of load balancing. I think the lack of a solution there is leading people...
What a great topic! I have had several management positions throughout my career and decided to take a step back a couple of years ago into an "individual contributor"...