There are all sorts of analogies we could use to explore this problem space, but I'd say music is an ideal one. In music, the "material" for consumption is sound and the tools for creation vary wildly, from the intuitive to the complex, but the act of creation and consumption of music is open to us at every level.

One detail that perhaps is overlooked with the popularity of Excel is that it is visual. Not just by using a GUI to control its logic, but that the results of changes are always made apparent. As an Excel beginner you might not know why something is broken, but you can figure out that something you did was wrong (logic errors can creep in, but can be minimised through breaking down concepts to contain fewer points where assumptions are encoded). Knowledge is then shared with other users in order to get Excel to perform as desired.

I'm rambling a little bit here, as I'm thinking out loud, but wouldn't an ideal starting point for a better Excel be Excel with cell types? If you think about it, a type system for Excel cells solves so many of the problems you get from trying to use Excel at scale. I could elaborate if the potential improvements are not obvious.