[t-c-h]

I understand that Excel allows for a quick glance, but I'm not sure how R does not offer the same visual cues? Assuming that the data originates from some csv/table structure, Excel requires some GUI clicking and R needs a read.csv() call.

I would say R is a lot more useful for a quick check on whether all columns have one data structure, contain NaN/NA's, are of equal length, etc.