> Any viable alternative to Excel has to overcome ingrained user familiarity, inertia, and be simple enough that your average Joe can use it.
I agree with what you're saying if you want one program to do all these things, but I'm not sure that's the way to go. Can you imagine any other industry where the same program serves both the "average Joe" and the power user?
One program can't be all things to all people. In the same way we both have iMovie and Final Cut, I think there's room for two types of spreadsheet program. Excel trying to cater to both types of people seems like a folly; it'll never make everyone happy. Why not replace Excel with a web-app on the low end, and make something more powerful that puts scripting front-and-center for people who need it?
As an example, even though I'm not a designer, I use Photoshop to create assets for my software. That would the same tool that my father, an ex-lithographer, uses for DTP and digital retouching.
A counter-example to my idiot-using-rocket-scientists'-tools is my girlfriend. She's an economist at a rather large central bank, and uses Excel to model what economists model when they're defining monetary policy. Those models are huge, and many run overnight. She comes home and Excel is the thing she uses for anything even vaguely resembling a list.
There's a lot to be said for everyone using the same program for similar tasks. Most of the advanced Excel users I know, and even myself to an extent, only do what we do now because we started using Excel at a basic level and learned more of its functionality as we went, and as needed. It's much easier to start off in the swallow end of Excel then work your way up to the deep end than it is to be stuck in a separate paddling pool and then thrown into the deep water to advance beyond a certain arbitrary level.
Another benefit is that one program being used by all levels makes it easier for advanced users to help less advanced users. Can you imagine trying to help a less advanced user in their paddling pool spreadsheet when you're used to something much more powerful that probably bears only superficial resemblance to it?
I agree with what you're saying if you want one program to do all these things, but I'm not sure that's the way to go. Can you imagine any other industry where the same program serves both the "average Joe" and the power user?
One program can't be all things to all people. In the same way we both have iMovie and Final Cut, I think there's room for two types of spreadsheet program. Excel trying to cater to both types of people seems like a folly; it'll never make everyone happy. Why not replace Excel with a web-app on the low end, and make something more powerful that puts scripting front-and-center for people who need it?