So, I love PivotTable. I also love PivotMatrix. However, I think there is room for something in the middle.
PivotTable is clean. They serve a singular purpose PivotMatrix is dynamic and allows for realtime manipulation.
They both have their strengths and weaknesses. I like the cleanliness of PT but the power and configurability of PM.
I'd like to see either PT extended to match PM with close to feature parity OR A hybrid model that would allow PT to have multiple aggregates [currently you can but only one shows] and be able to have paging but without the horrible grouping buttons of PM's. Sometimes they serve no purpose and I just want them gone.
So, here is a PT with three aggregates. The aggregates are listed in the red box but only one of them shows up in the data grid. There are three columns but two of the columns are empty [or just contain -].
Now, here is exactly the same data but using a PivotMatrix. VERY nice. I still have my three aggregates but I can now view the three of them per column, albeit manually. Very, very nice. However, the column grouping button and row grouping button serve no purpose for me in this report and would only either confuse my users or take away from the cleanliness of the Matrix. There is nothing to collapse nor expand, and I would never want to sort this data. It's perfect just the way it is.
Let me have a PT with multiple aggregates. Let me show them in the data grid automatically. Let me hide the grouping buttons. I rarely want them.
I'll be a very happy man.