I was wrong in the past. R is incredible.
 > foo <- read.csv("bar.csv")
 > summary(foo)
 > plot(foo$col1, foo$col2)
Wow.
I processed an 87 MB file today in under 1 min. Excel XP couldn't do  
that at all because of the 65k row limit; excel 2003 was so slow I had  
given up.
I definitely plan to play a lot more with this.
Brian
Sent from my iPod