jQuery vs document.querySelectorAll
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I heard several times that jQuery's strongest asset is the way it queries and manipulates elements in the DOM : you can use CSS queries to create complex queries that would be very hard to do in regular javascript . 
However , as far as I know , you can achieve the same result with document.querySelector or document.querySelectorAll (which are supported in ie8 and above) . 

So the question is - why 'risk' jQuery's overhead if it's strongest asset can be achieved with pure javascript ? 

I know jQuery has more than just css selectors , for example cross browser ajax , nice event attaching etc , but it's querying part is a very big part of the buzz of jQuery .

Any thoughts?