Why is Excel 2016 for Mac so bad?

The reason there is a menu bar in addition to a Ribbon and Quick Access toolbar is that Apple requires having a menu bar. If Apple didn't require it, the menu would not be there.

Do you have an SSD startup volume? If not, Excel may launch slowly. It's more hardware related than anything else. Excel is not a small program.

I too have office for Mac (got it in 2017) and I do agree that it is very very poorly performing software.  Looking at the review, I am not surprised.  Why did Microsoft left this happened?  I don't think Microsoft had funding for the project (office Mac).

Look at the menu- it has two separate menu going on (example: one in excel window and one on the mac file menu).  Launching is also very very slow (approx 1 full min. to launch ms excel, work, Power point).  Microsoft must have really cut down on the project team! or Did they outsourced the project to save money?  you can see this when you use the software.  Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do to speed up the performance- I tried.

I will say that ms-office (along with PC) is becoming less relevant.

I also wish they would (get off their behinds and actually do some work.)

MS is a software monopoly and behaves like one. We're imprisoned. We live in a .docx / .xlsx world. If MS were a properly regulated monopoly like many public utilities, it would be held to specific standards. But it isn't and it won't be even though it should be.

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* Mac OS. It changes like the wind. Trying to keep Office running on each and every update that comes down the pike is a huge problem. Sometimes I think Apple deliberately messes with Mac OS to screw Microsoft. For example, the next item in my list...

* Sandboxing. Microsoft adopted sandboxing to keep Office for Mac "Mac-like" and because Apple won't let Microsoft sell Microsoft Office in the App store unless Microsoft goes along with Sandboxing. Sandboxing crippled Microsoft Office. If I were looking for criminal behavior of a monopolist, I'd be going after Apple about sandboxing and their strong-arm tactics about getting apps into the App store.

* Cost containment. In a sense, maintaining Office for Mac and Office for Windows is duplication. You have to invent everything twice. Since Office for Mac sales are less than Office for Windows, Microsoft is keen on keeping the cost as low as possible. This, combined with not enough staff, is a big problem. Expensive to make features that don't get a lot of use are left out of Office for Mac. For example, Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) is very limited on the Mac. 

Which results in a very weak version of Excel for Mac. I consider it to be only about 1/3 done. If and when the promised Visual Basic Editor ever comes along, then I'll consider it to be 2/3 of the way. When the missing SQL and data components finally make their way to the Mac, then I'll say it's complete.

I like to comment this part of your theory. 

First because of the increased security risk from Malware due to the increasing popularity Apple came up with sandboxing so that any destructive doesn't mess up the entire computer and limits the damage only to the affected area. On the other hand, because the underlying code for Windows is much the same as it was forty years ago and at the very deepest core is still dependent on Ms-DOS. You can Take any windows PC can load any previous system At least back NT. It will run. It may not run right, but it will boot up. That's the reason why Window suffers from a constant barge of Malware daily thousands up thousands. Even Microsoft has introduced a system to control Nasty code. So far only Proof of concept malware has been written for Mac and Apple rewrites code and uploads changes in weeks, not months to overcome. If the computer News Outlets would hold off reporting new malware until after its cured would do a lot to slow down the writing of new malware.

As for the second  Paragraph. If Microsoft adopted Unix as the Base Code for the system, the only differences between Mac and PC would be the Graphical User interface. And that would be much less rewriting to do.

As for the last parts of the last paragraph, starting from OLE on, I agree. Except, you know from answering Forum questions, there is at least one or two question every day or two, asking questions, either asking why OLE doesn't work or asking about subjects which can only answer if OLE was functioning.

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I agree with the OP.

This Office 365 version of Excel for Mac (version as of Nov 2017) has more bugs than a bait store.

Glitchy screen motion, occasional freezes, a filter that doesn't work as advertised. These are just the things I can remember right now, as they've just happened to me - again.

Yes, it's totally updated, yes my Mac is modern, running latest High Sierra. Everything's up to the minute.

And yes, I've used Excel on Windows quite a bit, so I have firm expectations of how it should run.

There are only two logical explanations for this infliction upon the Excel-using Mac community....

1. MS really are trying to subtly pressure Mac users into giving up their machines and buying a M$ device.
2. MS didn't want to spend the time and/or money to roll out a finished product, realizing that their Mac customers would serve as a hapless and increasingly frustrated bunch of beta testers for them. Why spend the money when the customers will test it for you, and pay you for it at the same time??

Look - if you rolled out any non-software product with these bugs - a car, a table, a piece of computer hardware.....it would all be sent back, and the customers would go somewhere else.

It may be time to find other office software.

It may be time for MS to get off their laurels and actually do some work.