OLAP SHMOLAP!

Can someone explain to me why OLAP is such a big deal? It's a technology that is ancient (so far as computer technology goes) and yet I don't see why it is such a big deal. When I tried to use it, I found that I could duplicate the end product using a star-schema which seemed much less complicated and a lot less expensive (dollars and resources).

So what's the big deal? And why is Oracle spending so much time on it lately?