We currently rely quite heavily on the Catalog Manager UI to make minor changes to the SQL for Direct Database Queries because we don't then have to validate and then reformat the result columns, like we would have to do from OAC Answers.
Doing it from the Catalog Manager retains the Column Names, data format overrides etc. and makes it a far quicker experience.
The desupport notice reads "Some functionality in the current desktop interface will be available through a browser-based user interface" - if the functionality described above is not available from the browser-based UI then we request a delay in deprecation until a comparable option can be sourced.