David,

You say everything can be done with machine code.

But does machine code understand the concept of tables?

Or do you insert the concept of tables into your machine code?

And you say:

Data values in a relation cannot be accessed by row or column indices like a spreadsheet. I think that's a pretty important and fundamental distinction for most people.

Haah: so you're an Excel freak!

I personally use SQL queries together with Excel in end-user applications. The level of detail required by the end user leaves me no choice. Thus I'm sure you're familiar with VBA.

On the other hand, you have these Excel freaks who just want a plain flat file extraction and they take care of the rest with pivot tables and filters and all that Excel stuff.