[uuid]

The arguments are good and sound, but could be simpler:

If you can "grasp" your data by looking at it, use excel. If your data is too much to look at, use R.

Excel lends itself more to shallow exploratory approaches, while with R, you have to think first (or rather: always).

[stcredzero]

What about a graphical front end to R? I wonder if 90% of R's use cases could be represented in the form of a flowchart diagram, which then would generate R code. One could have the automatically re-run the script when the diagram changes and render graphs and other output. I was thinking of having a "remote control" for such an app on the iPad, with the ability to use the keyboard/mouse and script certain things by hand to enable the more esoteric 10%.

[carbocation]

I wonder if Rcmdr would be up your alley:

http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Misc/Rcmdr/

Screenshot: http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Misc/Rcmdr/Rcmdr-screenshot....

[EmilAich]

How about rattle? http://rattle.togaware.com/

[uuid]

I'm not entirely sure what kind of analysis you are thinking about. Statistics in R for me entail a lot of human intuition, interpretation and decisions. You probably don't want a script building your models for a confirmative factor analysis, for example.

[bocajuniors]

You mean Gnumeric!