I definitely would give the computation beta a try. My use case would be just "more visual Excel".
It's important that the nodes can also have non-formulae content, e.g.
salary["Salary<br/>`${1500}` €"]
Interested in seeing how you have implemented referencing the inputs.
Edit: You answered the last question with the video. Looks interesting, but having to add one extra node for the variable declaration feels cumbersome.
Edit 2: What if the outputs of the nodes could be named with text in the links?