Most of the complexity of needing Data.Dynamic has to do with the way we store the heterogeneous collection that is our observed data. There is a nicer way to do this which I hope lands in a future release.
What is the nicer way to do it?
As an example, suppose I am trying to load a csv file with two fields being strings and one being Double. A list of lists representation isn't going to cut it. Instead I should make a Row datatype
data Row = Row {field1 :: String, field2 :: String, field3 :: Double}
As an aside, if the task did involve parsing csv I suggest the cassava library which I found out about through the amazing What I Wish I Knew When Learning Haskell (http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/)
data Datum = S String | D Double
lst :: [Datum]
lst = [S "a", D 3.14]
case (lst !! 42) of
S n -> -- handle string
D n -> -- handle number