One other point is let's say you do create some fancy new system to handle the task. It's likely going to erode and be surpassed by new computing technology at

One other point is let's say you do create some fancy new system to handle the task. It's likely going to erode and be surpassed by new computing technology at which point you're looking at an expensive legacy migration which could prove to be costly and you have the same downsides you mentioned. Excel upgrades don't seem to break previous files as severely and have the backing of Microsoft. I can't believe I'm defending Excel.