"This begs the question of whether our collective reliance on spreadsheets is out of habit, necessity or fear of change."
This is the focal point of an article by John O’Rourke on the FEI daily: http://daily.financialexecutives.org/31-years-spreadsheets-time-move/
If your accounting system was "juiced" up with what is called enterprise performance management (EPM) solutions, could you forgo your spreadsheet OR will there always be a need for spreadsheets no matter what the accounting system is able to provide?