As long as such a bench gets the job done, the person making it wins.

Similarly with spreadsheets. Sure, they get ugly. But they allow to get work done better and faster that it would be otherwise (if it was done at all). The alternative usually involves finding a ready-made domain-specific application and adjusting your (or your company's) workflow to it, or pestering someone to make it for you, both of which are frequently bad trade-offs. It takes time to arrange, often siloes you off your data, you have lots of irrelevant stuff to learn besides your task, and it prevents you from iterating on your workflow. I'd say the last one - iteration on workflow - is the biggest source of Excel (ab)use. Hard to lock down your process in a domain-specific tool if the details of that process are fuzzy and subject to change.

The idea of a house full of hacked together cinder block and chipboard furniture doesn't thrill me. It might work for a workshop but I think I will just pay for the expert made stuff in my house.