IME as a DBRE, it usually is rejecting simplicity. Most devs know precious little about RDBMS, and so reach for what they do know. When an experienced DBA / DBRE shows them the idiomatic way to do what they’re attempting, they often reject it and claim “flexibility,” or “keeping logic out of the database.” It’s just not wanting to do things they’re unfamiliar with, but for some reason it’s accepted for RDBMS, because it lives in the liminal space of infra and code.