true however if the business requirement, especially from a customer, is to export against a certain file type then because it maybe be "hard" to do so doesnt mean nor is it acceptable to say "its too hard, sorry, we are going to do it against a different file format".
just because its hard doesnt mean it should not be done nor investigated. it just doesnt work like that
furthermore, reading more and understanding more about using the PIA's against Word/Excel is what is required due to, as you have pointed out, the difficulty and given the fact that its quite complex.

there are 3rd party tools which do make it easier to export into Excel and should also be considered.