I'm not familiar with Dev.info, so I can't help much with comparisions or related ideas there.

Excel does a great job of mapping when used with MapPoint.

It sounds to me like you (or your organization) are using Excel to collect, store, and present data every month. Excel can certainly do that, but Microsoft Access has better tools for that kind of job. Microsoft Access will also tend to lead you to use VBA which will add a great deal to both the power and the complexity of using Office Applications.

-PatP