bubblyworld parent
Can you provide examples of software that should have literally been a spreadsheet or an ETL? Not to call you out specifically but this feels like "I could have written that in a weekend". Personally whenever I have felt that way about a project it turned out I was just missing 95% of the business context/domain knowledge (part of the reason I think rewrites are a bad idea - chesterton's fence).
I can give you one - a billing system with reporting features that suck dreadfully compared to what can be done with a spreadsheet. Why not "just" let the user download a CSV and then do whatever they want with it?
I was working on this project and I kept suggesting it. It was seen as inferior and yet the system we were going to produce was far inferior in every way.