Ah, gotcha! That changes things up a good bit :-).

Access may well be a more workable solution, then, provided the DBAs aren't overwhelmed presently. Pass-through queries are literally done the same way as SQL queries, since you're writing the statement that SQL Server will use to return data.

If the DBAs have the time, users could submit query requests much like they submit report requests; if they need dropdowns and so on to retrieve data, pass-through queries could be written to pull that data, supply it to Access forms, and the forms would drive the data retrieval.

There would be a bit of a learning curve for the DBAs, but it's at least GUI-based; the pass-throughs would retrieve the data, and they'd be specified as a data source in the Access form designs. There's also the matter of designing the forms, which may or may not be an issue (it's like designing a fairly simplistic GUI, but depending on the complexity needed, there could be lots of moving parts).

Granted, if the DBAs are strained at present, that's going to muddy things up a bit, but if they're willing to work on learning a bit about the functionality of Access, it could be a workable solution.