copy the spreadsheet, modify some code because the need is sightly different (or the spreadsheet need adjustment) and voila. Either it works just fine on the first time, either you just begun a one hour debugging session.

To me excel is just fine, except when its not. A French bank lost 6 billion ten years ago because one market maker made false entry on a spreadsheat and no one in the back office noticed for more than 2 years. And the back office was not at fault here.