How do you bundle a spreadsheet into a PDF? Even embedded into word is a lot less usable and runs the risk of linking to the document and not embedding.

Depends on what you're planning to do with the spreadsheet. If it's display only, it's easy to bundle into a PDF or Word doc. If you need to interact with it, sure, standalone is better. But this the first case is something I deal with all the time. If I'm looking at financial statements for a board meeting, I really don't need a live spreadsheet, and it's massively more convenient to have it bundled in with the agenda, minutes, reports, etc.

On the flip side, I do public transit advocacy, and having spreadsheets of the monthly data reported to the board, it would be so much better than ocr/text extraction and manual editing.