I'd like to think that it's because people are finally seeing the tangible and quantifiable economic benefits, as David has so nicely summarized for us with a real-world example, that can be acheived by those with a suitable background in not just Excel or programming, but also in the nature of the actual work at hand.
I once worked with a great programmer who didn't know the first thing about accounting, and therefore it was taking him forever to build some simple financial statements. But he knew his way around optimized code.
