How to keep track?

It's no secret that I enjoy financial planning.  I like playing with all of the variables involved in retirement planning (contributions, interest rates, asset allocation) and toying with the plausible outcomes.

Dying by the time I'm 50 = all the energy I put toward retirement planning is wasted.
Dying when I'm 110 = that would be the true test to see if I'm a good planner. 

There are two websites that I want to explore more when it comes to retirement planning.

The first is Financial Engines.  I've heard people rave about it.  A couple of years ago we reached the point where we had enough money in Vanguard investments that we could get Financial Engines for free.  Bonus!  By this time, I had heard so many positive reviews that I was certain I was going to have a most awesome Financial Engines experience.  I'm sad to report that I got frustrated by the website.  We have most of our net worth in 1) our house and 2) our retirement plans.  Like most 401(k)s, my plan at work doesn't have funds that align completely with publicly traded mutual funds.  Financial Engines makes you enter each fund individually (number of shares owned in each mutual fund symbol).  Well, since most of the funds are private or hybrids of others, there's no real mutual fund symbol.  When I entered things initially, it was frustrating because my funds weren't there & when I put in the number of shares I owned (per my statement), it gave me a wonky total.  And with a 401k plan, there are small additions to each of the funds every month, which became a bear to keep track of.  The simplest thing was if it could interact with my 401(k) plan itself, so I didn't have to babysit it.  But that isn't going to happen.  My second preference would be that I could just override it with the aggregate 401k total instead of entering each mutual fund symbol and the number of shares owned.  Of course, I know they have you enter in the symbol so that it can do the calculations for you and show you your asset allocation.  It's supposed to be easy, but it's not when our two 401(k) plans don't import information and use completely different funds.  So I just gave up.  I recently went back in after a two year hiatus, and it's still set up the same way.  (sigh)

More and more I'm interested in Networthiq.  You can create a profile (public or private, your choice) and keep track of your net worth.  It seems easier to use than Financial Engines, and I don't think I'd get dragged down by the detail. 

Or I can just keep track of it all in Excel, as I do know.  I keep track of our net worth and our retirement projections.  It suits us just fine.  It's not a very snazzy system, but it works.  And I guess that's all that matters, right?

I don't often ask for comments, but this time I am.  If you've had a wonderful experience with long-range financial planning software (not budget software), could you share it with me?  I find it hard to believe that Excel is all I need.