The prompts you mentioned here sound like SQL. Is there any way to run actual SQL on these systems? Is "agents need to poke around endlessly" a symptom of the fact that there isn't a way to run an actual query?
(I'd guess there is actually SQL at the bottom layer, but there's no way to talk to it?)
(I'd guess there is actually SQL at the bottom layer, but there's no way to talk to it?)