You can do a lot of stuff that overlaps with queries with just array formulas, and a lot of the rest with pivot tables. This is true, you can do a lot with thi

You can do a lot of stuff that overlaps with queries with just array formulas, and a lot of the rest with pivot tables. This is true, you can do a lot with this. And if you're prepared to make a lot of columns with the various flags you need, you can build up quite complex queries - having an easy way to do this would be nice though. I've spent a lot of time in Financial Services and it's surprising how much of the industry is run on spreadsheets, especially investment banking - and I mean online - they'll have Excel running all day, receiving real time price feeds, running a calculation and republishing. Excel is pretty much the glue that holds the whole industry together. So I also agree on the maintenance issue - These sheets can get quite complex and it's almost impossible for someone to understand coming in cold. It would be very useful to have a workflow model on top - which I guess is really adding the algorithm aspect - but I've never seen a speadsheet metaphor that does this well.