The application->database layer is pretty impactful and it pays to pay attention to it, because poor access patterns will cause a lot of trouble in the future, and its made worse by not having a very accurate understanding of whats going on in that layer.
I think a lot of developers don't have a good sense on where their time sinks actually are. Boilerplate is not pleasant to write but also not the timeline-destroyer people tend to think it is. And its often not enough of a time-sink to warrant introducing "magic" that will have very large negative future impacts.