I had never seen your "web-based Excel/database hybrid" suggestion before, but I'm curious if you believe it should be grid driven at all?

Our approach is more page (or in terms of Access: form) driven.

This is how an individual entry might look like: http://ycindex.silk.co/page/Dropbox

Here's how it can look in a grid/table view: http://ycindex.silk.co/explore/table/collection/startup/colu...

Or in groups: http://ycindex.silk.co/explore/groupby/collection/startup/gr...