It would be hard, but I think a new kind of spreadsheet that was easier to validate, easily impose a schema and constraints and helps us identify human errors would be helpful.
I bet excel has some excellent features around this, but they are not front and center in the UI.
Lotus Improv was a bit like that I think. It's been a long time since I used it. Wikipedia says:
Conventional spreadsheets used on-screen cells to store all data, formulas, and notes. Improv separated these concepts and used the cells only for input and output data. Formulas, macros and other objects existed outside the cells, to simplify editing and reduce errors. Improv used named ranges for all formulas, as opposed to cell addresses.
I bet excel has some excellent features around this, but they are not front and center in the UI.