Advice for best workflow for catalogue production

We do several catalogues annually for some customers that are in the 80-120 page range. Each catalogue has between 1000 to 2000 products listed. The layout is based in sections and we use Indesign tables for the part number/description/key technical details/price/ The tables are not the same from product to product but vary depending on the type. So, for example, the number of columns and rows varies, the relative location of the price column changes (but is usually always the last right hand side one) and so on.
What we normally do is take an excel spreadsheet from the customer which is set up with multiple tables that follow the catalogue format, so we copy and paste the content from Excel to the appropriate Indesign table. The customer uses a LookUp function in Excel to maintain the price list monthly, and we do annual updates. The LookUp function searches another Excel file that has a data source from the accounts system, and so keeps the price and key data up to date (depending on the function).
What I would like to know, is there a better, more efficient way of doing this?
Is there a way for Indesign to lookup tabular data from Excel? In this way, what I am thinking, is that when the customer updates the price list spreadsheet from the accounts system (which is a 2 second task), we can then open the catalogue document (book actually) and automatically have Indesign update all the tables from the Excel document, then save the document to pdf.
Is there a plug in that does this? Or is there a technique in Indesign we are not using?
I've seen other people posting similar requests over the years so I know we are not alone in working this way.
Or are we actually better off sticking to the copy and paste table content replacement technique?
Any thoughts gratefully received. We're using Indesign CS4 on Mac.
Thanks,
Kevin

Thanks for the quick feedback.
I did try linking Excel to Indesign CS2 a couple of years ago on this job but found it a bit unreliable, maybe I'll try again in CS4.
I've not used table styles on this job - I'll need to take another look at that.
When we did the first iteration of this catalogue series using CS2 it was our first big job after switching from Quark Xpress so there were things I am sure we did wrong with regards to table set up. After completing that job I created a new Excel spreadsheet for the customer with all the tabular data from the catalogues in exactly the same format so we could copy and paste future corrections (at the time we used a table script that worked with CS2 for this). So in theory we may be able to link the two again (but I know the spreadsheet will need tweaking first!).
The problem I've had using table styles on this job was the number of variations in table layout in the documents. Having said that I need to look at the options on this again.
The whole catalogue is set up using a book with linked sections, unified styles and cascading master pages so making changes globally is relatively easy and consistent. Currently the tabular information is text styles (Character styles I think - need to check!).
I have no problem investing in a catalogue plug in provided it does help the workflow (as we do a few other similar jobs from time to time), but I'll need to take some time to try this out in detail. From the workflow I describe which product do you think would be more suitable?
Thanks again for the feedback. I'll take a look at what we can do and report back here as I'm sure others will be interested.
Thanks,
Kevin

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I am in a similar mode, though about half as much existing DV footage.
+Should I maintain my event library in .dv format? (and bite the bullet on the storage)+
Short answer, yes; long answer:
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