I'm new here and this is my first post. I have been using Adobe Photoshop Elements for my DAM needs and have used every version since Elements 3. The current version, Elements 2021, is version 19. So, it has actually been around a lot longer than Lightroom. The Elements Organizer, which is the program that handles the media catalog, has been one of my favorite programs, so I am definitely a fanboy. I currently have over 200k photo and video files in my catalog, and I can generally find any photo I am looking for within seconds. I highly recommend it.
Many of the current features are controlled by AI which seems to improve each year. But even though much of the media analysis is performed automatically, the program still requires some effort by the user in order to take full advantage of all it has to offer.
Face recognition is excellent and the latest version also conducts face recognition on videos. Keyword tagging is also easy to apply and flexible. I don't use geo-tagging but if your images have geo metadata, there are aids to place your photos on a map. The program also provides analysis to identify Events for tagging. However, perhaps the best search feature is the smart tags that are applied to each image. The AI has become so good that it almost eliminates the need to create keyword tags for your media. Search for "flower" and all of your flower images will be displayed. Add "yellow" to your search term and the results will be narrowed down accordingly. The automatic search vocabulary is quite extensive and I don't think I have ever been able to stump it. Of course, if you have specialized tagging needs, the program is very flexible.
Although you say you don't want to learn Photoshop, the Elements version is a fairly powerful editor. Although, I have an Adobe Photoshop CC subscription, I would say that 90% of my editing takes place in Photoshop Elements. For those who don't want a subscription, Elements is an excellent alternative. And, yes, a single-payment license does not last forever. But, I am active on the Elements community forums and I see many users who are still happy using their 8 or 9 year old software versions. Mac is a slightly different story because of all the hardware and software changes that Apple has introduced over the past couple of years which has required users to update their Adobe software.
One final point: if you want to use a different editing software, the Organizer makes it very easy to send images from the catalog to your chosen editor. Many external editors can also be used as a plug-in to Photoshop Elements.
If you are interested in trying it out, there is a 30 day free trial available:
https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements/download-trial/try.html.
Added: Like I said, I'm new here so didn't see that this was a multiple page discussion that has been going on for a while.