Numbers, from the iWork suite, does this. You can name your rows and columns and just them in your formulas:
http://www.apple.com/iwork/numbers/
Of course, it's not perfect if you look at the proprietary format, at the smaller number of formulas than Excel, and so on. But it's a nice piece of software as far as I'm concerned.
It's actually simpler than naming a range because you can use the names of the rows and columns that you have in the header of the table.
It's a moot point since you don't have a Mac but from what you describe, Numbers does what you're missing.
I saw in one of your later comments that you were also talking about multiple tables on the same page. Numbers actually manages tables as independent objects of a page. So, in a table you can ask for the sum of a whole column without getting the numbers from another unrelated table on the same page. That's something that always bothered me in Excel.
Tables as independent objects on the page does sound like what I'm getting at. Of course I'd need to see it to see if they're doing it the way I want ^__^
Of course, it's not perfect if you look at the proprietary format, at the smaller number of formulas than Excel, and so on. But it's a nice piece of software as far as I'm concerned.