Point being that if he actually knew Excel then he'd also know that Excel supports named columns just fine. With statement like that, he presents himself as ignorant of the basic features of their main competitor, which is not exactly great way to win the power-users of mentioned competitor.

I'd be inclined to attribute that to messaging more than understanding. I hear what you're saying, but a fully qualified statement that captures all of the details both loses a lot of impact and isn't the kind of thing that would appear in the Verge.

Exactly. It's the same problem as communication of science to the general public: if you make it 100% accurate, most people either won't understand or won't care. After enough customer interviews you start to get a sense of what gets people nodding their heads, and that's what makes it into these articles. Assuming that statements like this reflect a company's complete understanding of the problem just isn't fair.

I don't think it's a question of whether it supports it or not, it's that Coda does it by default and has built the rest of the tool around that feature.