Excel do not seem to be the cause - poor knowledge of using the tool is. You can argue that excel needs to be simpler than it is to learn - but then until some

Excel do not seem to be the cause - poor knowledge of using the tool is. You can argue that excel needs to be simpler than it is to learn - but then until something better for ubiquitous use (not forgetting SPSS and other tools which are way more complex) comes along - excel literacy is what is needed. Excel has its own quirks, but it also is capable of doing powerful modelling if you are ready to get out of the novice levels - but you also need advanced levels mathematics and statistics knowledge to be able to use them. Programming is not a panacea - financial and statistical modelling is beyond average programmer's level of proficiency.