I don't get it... Looks to me like DBT is a Python SQL wrapper / big library that among other things includes an SQL generator / something else like that -- but not "pure" SQL?
DBT has two main innovations. First, everything is a SELECT statement and DBT handles all the DDL for you. You can handle DDL yourself if you have a special case too. Second, the ref/source macros build a DAG of all your models so you don't have to think about build order. There are other innovations but those are the main ones.
You can give it truly pure SQL in both models and scripts, and mixing in Jinja if you need it for dynamic models. But I'd recommend at least using ref/source.
I don't get it... Looks to me like DBT is a Python SQL wrapper / big library that among other things includes an SQL generator / something else like that -- but not "pure" SQL?