Agree with your point about hibernate and its derivatives. Unfortunately with .Net you're stuck with that or EF which is even worse or something off the shelf and even crappier. TBH I've actually used raw ADO.Net with provider abstraction and dapper.net recently as replacements.
Despite its inefficiency, the old CQRS pattern with commands that INSERT/UPDATE and queries as typed DataTables are actually the most scalable solution I've found (over several years, not just on small projects).
Despite its inefficiency, the old CQRS pattern with commands that INSERT/UPDATE and queries as typed DataTables are actually the most scalable solution I've found (over several years, not just on small projects).