Change column name on report into something else instead of the field label

I too would like to name the column names used in the database and therefore the spreadsheets etc. Using the label content as a column name makes them very cumbersome and not very user friendly.

Would it not be possible to provide a property of the input field that we could set ourselves that would then be used, in preference to the label if it exisited.

Unfortunately, this isn't possible. The column names on reports are base on the field names. You have to download the form to excel so you can change the column names there. 

If you want a short name on columns, I suggest to add a short label in your fields and use "Text" field to elaborate it further.

Example: