I came here to say the same thing - use the Spreadsheet Import Tool .
Use LibreOffice if you don't want the Microslop. The best part is nearly all people, including junior engineers and non-engineers, use spreadsheets. But yes I've run into resistance with software engineers loathing the idea of a spreadsheet. The main downside I saw to using it was lack of compatibility with source control. Maybe a JSON variant could be in the future, but it wouldn't be as simple and straightforward as the spreadsheet.
Regarding site-specific views, custom string properties can be very useful when you use them to create relationships to viewPaths (or tagPaths). You can even drive an entire UI using this method. It keeps projects flexible to adapt from site to site, device to device, without scripting. It's also helpful you can drive these viewPaths via a default for the property in the UDT, but override them for any given instance via the Spreadsheet Import Tool.