It still is that way. And whats even more maddening: you have to replace the commas in the formulas with semicolons. Probably because the comma is used in numbers in Dutch. It has driven me nuts more than once though!
I think there would be a compromise in making if US gave up imperial units and Europe would give up the decimal comma. Or at least I would like that kind of compromise. The next hurdle would be to all agree to use ISO date format...