[Rusky]

A couple of recent, interesting explorations:

Subtext (http://subtext-lang.org/) - in particular check out the video on "schematic tables," which is very immediate and direct like Excel but better for general purpose.

Some of Bret Victor's work: Inventing on principle (http://vimeo.com/36579366) Media for the Unthinkable (http://worrydream.com/MediaForThinkingTheUnthinkable/) He has a lot of examples of similar interfaces for more domains than just what Excel is good at.

Another example, although much less so, is Unity's editor- property editing and level editing are very immediate and visual even for things like behavior.