The simplicity of the cells makes a vanilla spreadsheet very malleable. Higher-level modeling above the basic cell grid makes some things easier, introduces straightjackets as well, and real-world complexity that’s not handled well by the modeling paradigm makes for complex problems instead of simple problems.

Improv looked cool and made it easy to have horrible calculation errors. I had such fun demoing a comparison to our multidimensional spreadsheet at trade shows. Lotus also couldn’t handle internal threats to 1-2-3 so Improv was never going to go far.