Ask HN: Best tools for data reporting?

I've used and built BI and Reporting tools before, but am currently having trouble determining the best tool for the job. I've used things like jasper reports and pentaho in the past but these feel like very raw products and a lot of overhead to simply generate a report. I essentially have a database that has a vast amount of valuable data. We're beginning to really examine the data we have and look at trends and then begin analyzing users.

Currently I've used a mix of raw sql extracts combined with Excel, but this is more steps than desired. Much of the reports that I'm creating thus far are based on raw SQL and I don't really need a builder tool, only the ability to visualize the results.

What tools have you used that let you easily connect to a data source and run reports against it?