Why would most players hesitate to trade a queen for a rook+minor piece?

Well, rook and knight is HARD. Queen just zooms around the board.

@tpr Agreed. I am repeatedly amazed at the "queen-aphilia" attitudes of many players. It is a mind set from early learning. Their attacking ideas are always based on the queen, if they lose the queen, they lose all enthusiasm for the game, without regard to compensation. Contra-positive, if they win a minor piece, they focus entirely on forcing a queen trade, figuring that destroys the opponent's attacking chances.
Of course, like all incorrect ideas, it is founded on a truth -- the queen is strong -- but it is often exaggerated beyond its scope.

Last year I finished a correspondence game (yeah, with engines and everything. High-end, the full monty)

At the end you will see how powerful the Queen really is. She outweighs Rook and two minor pieces. The white King is not needed, just some humble pawns on their starting rank.

(see the last minute)

m.youtube.com/watch?v=CpoAOsca3UU

PS: found it here lichess.org/ev1mBvw4/

@nayf - In your game - that's probably the case because wherever the queen moves, the knight takes d6 with tempo on the rook, and then pressure on the b7 and c6 pawns. In most cases, the engine will prefer to lose a piece than play 2 pieces against a queen

@tpr it depends on the stage of the game. Early in the game the exchange is estimated at 1.5 while in the endgame more towards 2.

" The exchange is barely worth 1½ points when there are 14 or more pawns on the board. Only when there are ten or fewer pawns may the exchange be worth 2 points "

@YM17 He could play Qb6, then after NxB, exchange queens, then have tempo to move away the R that's attacked. Yet the engine prefers to give up the Q for two pieces rather than just lose a B, presumably calculating it has better chances with one more piece than White, despite no queen.