>2) On the opposite end, Excel is much more powerful than I had thought, it's simply *loaded* with good functions, and though I use it a lot from within vfp, mostly all I've done is just a lot of formatting. I had no idea of Excel's functional power...
I am impressed by the variety of functions in Excel myself. There must be around 500. Just as an example, it has an entire category of functions to work with complex numbers. I used this for my engineering study (for calculations in electrical circuits).
A host of database and information functions can help you work with data as a "database", although I would still recommend VFP for heavy-duty work...
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)