What do you mean by the "middle ground"? The way you described it, there's more middle ground with WordPress than with all other CMS platforms combined.

There are a number of fantastic visual website builders for WordPress that allow you to generally build whatever you want without writing any code.

If you have custom data needs you can use plugins to visually generate and present complex custom data, without writing any code.

If those don't meet your needs, you can write code to generate even more complex custom data structures.

If writing code isn't your thing, there is an absolutely massive market of WordPress developers ranging from pennies on the dollar to expert teams that charge $100+ an hour.

There are hosting platforms ranging from $5/mo to $100/mo to enterprise level. (And free options, but I wouldn't recommend any of them.)

Small businesses can go on just about any freelance or job site and get your site customized or a completely custom site built for hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars, or hundreds of thousands of dollars. You get what you pay for, but saying the options aren't there I just don't understand?