Academics are not software people, by and large. The code is custom built for a specific graph or statistical run. Typically the people writing the software are

Academics are not software people, by and large. The code is custom built for a specific graph or statistical run. Typically the people writing the software are grad students with little to no interest in code; they just want the answer. Their interest is in the thing they are studying, not code. They may not even have coded before grad school, nor know matrix algebra or calculus. Excel is a big step for them. I have experience in this issue. A fellow grad student of mine asked for some help with his code. I said sure, but it'll cost you a 12 pack of beer. After the 11th nested 'if' statement in Matlab, I upped it to a 24 pack. We never did get it working right.