CAML is hard to learn, and dificult to use, is there a better way to get results from MOSS, besides using CAML queries? And not referring to the Web Services, which are slower, or the object model, which again is slower.
Essentially, yes, you need to at least be able to read and understand CAML. However you can probably get out of writing it. I've used these tools:
U2U CAML Query Builder by U2U - download and online
Yet Another CAML Query Tool by Carlos Segura Sanz (good if you know SQL) - CodePlex