Lets be realistic, AdvancedHMI is NOT a historian. Nor is it a SCADA or MES system. For what it is (HMI software) it's a nice little package. Stipulations of "some code here, and some queries there..." trying to constitute it as a historian is a really stretch.
I 100% agree with you. The target application and what it does easiest and very well is creating HMIs, such as a PanelView substitute. However that message wasn't conveyed very well and the majority of users have pushed the applications far beyond after discovering the capabilities go farther that as long as you are good at or willing to learn to write a bit of VB code.
To understand this, you must understand the architecture of the software. AdvancedHMI is merely a toolset for use in creating applications with Visual Studio. Users are not limited to the tools that come with the base package which allow you to create applications without writing code. Instead Users are free to write code, extend existing tools, or even create their own tools. Knowing that Visual Studio and .NET are generic tools for creating any kind of application is what's important fully understand. The AdvancedHMI tools are just the huge jump start to creating applications that communicate with PLCs.
Does the software have the basic tools for easily creating a historian application? No, because its base toolset is targeted for HMI development. Is it possible to do the same tasks a historian does? Absolutely if someone is willing to write some code.
Just to give an idea of what can be done, here are a couple projects that I have personally done and deployed into factories:
1) An application that reads process variables through each stage of a machine for a total of 35 process values related to every part produced on a machine and records the information to a SQL Server at an average rate of 3000 parts per day. The data was packed in multiple FIFOs in a ControlLogix and had to be pulled out, processed, then signaled back to the PLC that section of data was retrieved.
How many lines of code to do this application? About 200 line of VB. This application is downloadable from the Sample application section for anyone wishing to see how it is done.
An accompanying application was also created that displays the current or historical production counts from this database and displays it on an hour by hour and press by press grid.
2) An application that records temperature samples from a cooker every 15 seconds and stores them in a SQL Server.
How many lines of code did that take? 10 lines
The OP requested an alternative in which they could write "a little programming instead" and such is my proposed solution.