I would say that the problem with excel is that it makes two contradicting assumptions which is a red flag for bad design. "it is user's fault for not knowing how to use the tool" and "user is lazy idiot who won't setup the cell types themselves". Its a little bit of convince of not having to set cells as numbers in a program that is use mainly for crunching numbers, but having basic auto detection text/numbers would have covered 90% of use, the remaining 10% is unique for each user and trying to guess that is as likely be helpful as making things worse.