Since I've discovered "nickle"[1] (by pure chance), I've been aliasing bc=nickle on every system I had access to.
nickle has normal algebraic notation with arbitrary precision, configurable base input/output for every expression (very reminiscent of calc), math functions and C operators work out of the box. It has variables, as well as a simple c-like language for additional extensions.
If RPN is not for you, "nickle" is a perfect "bc" replacement which works as you would expect.