Anecdotically, I was talking to an acquaintance who decided to pick up R as a replacement for excel for data analysis and they were positively blown away by the possibilities opened by the new mindset that came with programming.

So yes, maybe these "relatively unskilled users" will struggle for a few weeks/months, but it will be a net positive change as many of them will see immense benefit after some tinkering.

I think there is a difference between the errors. Excel autocorrect errors are easy to miss as it is the software making an arbritrary decision over your own.

Errors made from using a new , presumably neutral software, would be the kind you are supposed to catch as a researcher.

There is obviously scope for error in everything but Excel's user-hostile methods are not justified by this.

Switch to what?

Excel is everywhere.

People are familiar with it. The same people are often not familiar with, and have never used, and may even be confused by “notepad.exe”.

These aren't someone's 85 year old grandparent getting a computer for the first time to look at pictures of their great grandchildren, these are people who have used a computer every day since they were 14 and have advanced STEM degrees. I think they are probably re-trainable.

XXX YYY ZZZ, PhD in genomics, probably re-trainable