Good BBQ sauce will have layers of flavor. It’ll hit you first with a faint hint of sweet, then a little tang and finally a little heat on the back end, none of which overpower the smoke flavor. Too much sweet takes away from the flavor of the meat. I was given a good recipe for that type and it’s my go to now.
In the Carolinas you see a lot of vinegar based sauce, some of it can get pretty spicy but there is no sweet at all. You see a bunch of mustard based too but again there is no sweet, just heat. It’s all good too.
I think “sweet” bbq sauce comes from the unoffensive commercialized version of bbq which is often not even smoked, just roasted and slathered in crappy sauce to the point that sauce is all you taste. May as well be a Mcrib at that point.