Even as spreadsheets go, I wouldn't use Excel for statistical analysis (I wouldn't use any spreadsheet unless it was a function coded as a macro). It's not just a performance thing, but also a confidence in results thing. Spreadsheets admit to oversimplifying the processing and then having issues as the assumptions in the data change.

This does not mean that a spreadsheet couldn't be an important piece of the pipeline though. Database to Spreadsheet is actually a very powerful combination, particularly with views.