Active Record Plugin
Rob Sanchez released a plugin for EE2 that lets you use the CodeIgniter Active Record pattern in your templates the same way you use the standard query module. The syntax is pretty dang elegant, and if you’re at all used to active record I imagine you’ll find this a welcome improvement over the query module. I’d even say if you don’t use ActiveRecord at all and want something that feels more like native ExpressionEngine template tags, you should check this out.
More information and documentation can be found on the Active Record plugin page on Devot:ee.