I have an Excel table with bad references -the referenced file is not available.
M$ Excel misbehaves in this case -it asks, whether to upgrade the cells from
external source, then claims that "some" of the cells could not be refreshed,
and uses the old values there. Nobody knows, which values are fresh from
references and which are old.

OOo Calc behaves differentially -it asks, whather to get the values from
referenced sources. If I answer "No", I know there are old values everywhere. If
I answer "Yes", and it fails to get the values from referenced file, it places
#N/A into affected fields. Thus I know, which values couldn't be refreshed from
original source.


However, I thing some "inbetween" behaviour should also be available.

Calc asks, whether to try to get fresh data from original sources. I answer
"Yes", and he fails to do so for some values.
He should display a warning with exact source files cited and status (OK/failed)
and allow me to choose from 2 options:

1, the old way -let's place the #N/A into the unavailable values (original
reference remains there)
2, new way -keep old values but mark them by different colour (e.q. grey them)

The second choice is good in the case that user is facing a spreadsheet with
several referenced resources, some of them unavailable for now. User might know,
that those unavailable references are not crucial.
He could still do calculations based on old values, knowing that they are old,
and greyed for better resolution.

The computated values, based on old (unrefreshed) values could possibly get
greyed too.