Data at the boundary must be validated, a file format can't do that for your. Semantics is harder than syntax and you can't push every problem to that level.
while csv is less than optimal, it's always worked out in practice for me (because we still have to validate anything of significant size and nothing finance or city/nation sized should generally be edited by hand anyway, and errors are everywhere independent of format).
honestly, my bigger nightmare has been people trying to put things into something like xml...
edit: not that there aren't huge problems with the csv/excel/database software and interaction: generally I just end up having to assume everything is text and defining type information my end afterwards on successful parsing
Spreadsheets haven't exactly gone away either.