I partially agree, but then I remember my high school IT lessons, where people in my class (our profile was math and IT, mind you) struggled with excel and very basic programming. Scripting may sound trivial for people reading HN, but certainly is not for everyone.
Not to mention that to really benefit from scripting you need programs that you can actually execute. As far as I know Windows (which most people use) is not very friendly in that regard. Powershell improves things a bit, but I'm pretty sure you can't just manipulate .xlsx files with a simple shell script on Windows, and this is one of the lowest hanging fruits I could imagine for white collar workers.
Powershell and whatever else can that instantiate COM objects can edit excel files.
Windows is a lot more friendly than you realize. Probably powershell is a lot more powerful than you realize.
I'll also make the point that people who are doing OK in excel probably can model things in their head well enough to get into scripting. Powershell also has a one-liner "export to *.csv" cmdlet, which is pretty amazingly handy.
Not to mention that to really benefit from scripting you need programs that you can actually execute. As far as I know Windows (which most people use) is not very friendly in that regard. Powershell improves things a bit, but I'm pretty sure you can't just manipulate .xlsx files with a simple shell script on Windows, and this is one of the lowest hanging fruits I could imagine for white collar workers.