I actually have, in my quest to find a perfect note app. The key features that I looked at were web clipping, syncing between devices, ease of use, searchability, stability, portability and a little bit of eye candy.
Unfortunately Obsidian doesn't offer web clipping, so that disqualifies it right away, but I decided to give it a try anyway because I hoped it would tick all the other boxes. It didn't take long for me to realize why Laurent went for the database approach.
For starters, the folder based note system quickly becomes a mess especially when you have images or attachments in your notes. The problem is that all those get added to the main folder, and each of those files gets added to the note list as a note.
So you decide (too late) to go into the app setup and add all your NEW images to their own folder. That only shifts the issue a little, because now you have this folder "attachments" with 600 images in it. Plus the 200 original images still in the root of your folder because the app is not going to change those for you.
If you delete a note, you have to manually delete the 30 images, pdf files or other attachments, because the app won't do it for you so before you delete your note, you need to manually check what images/attachments it contains and delete those first. Note history? No such thing.
Moving a note (file) from one folder to another is possible, but... the attachments won't follow. So now you have a note in your new folder "Archived notes" but the attachments are still in the folder "WIP". And your folder structure is an even bigger mess, because soon you have 200 attachments in the root, 600 attachments in root/archive, 300 attachments in /workingfolder/attachments, of which 150 actually belong in /archive/attachments because you moved the note but the attachments didn't follow.
Oh and forget about renaming your attachments outside of the app (or at all, from what I can tell), because you will lose your link and good luck trying to find out that you renamed that file from xowjdjkw.gif to smileyface.gif but it is still the same name in your note file.
It might work for people who have nothing but text notes, but... for me it was a huge headache before I even got properly started.
Compare that with Joplin. I have used Joplin for almost 18 months now after leaving Evernote and never, ever looked at another editor since. Joplin actually looks after all these things (attachments, deletions, etc) so that I don't have to. I don't think I'll EVER go to another editor again so I tend to be protective of how the core features of Joplin function