ApEx (Application Express) is an Oracle product, more like a visual RAD tool for the web. Did Salesforce really call their scripting language the same thing??
The other is that nobody, if they can help it, uses ApEx.
Oh oh. I worked for more than two years with a team that continued to expand their investment in Oracle and Apex.
When everything you know is Oracle, everything looks like a task for Oracle ;-)
It came free with the database license, so it got used.
I don't miss it.
I'm curious - what made your experience negative?
As soon as you need something that doesn't quite fit the limited palette, you need to go underneath and write PL/SQL.
Not as much fun.
In my experience, nothing stays pure CRUD forever.
That said, I'd be surprised if many places have it as easily available to end users as Access.
[1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/ThePlayerOf...