>> But here's the problem: at some point, the user wants the tool to do something beyond what the tool can do. Once again, this depends on the lens you view it

>> But here's the problem: at some point, the user wants the tool to do something beyond what the tool can do. Once again, this depends on the lens you view it with. With any solution that does a good job, it will eventually grow. Sometimes it outgrows what it was already built upon. I see this is as a good problem to have, because it's a validation that the problem was real, and that the solution has value. You can also now justify putting some resources against it. If your starting point is "this problem needs to be solved with programming" and A) you don't have that skill, B) you don't have the money to hire a person to do it, C) your organization isn't willing to give you a skilled internal resource to build it, what are your options? You can either do nothing and live with the problem indefinitely, or you can try to do something that doesn't involve "real programming" to make your life a little easier.