The user interfaces mostly use : - the Ctrl modifier for an action, - the Alt and Alt Gr modifier for special caracters. For exemple, Thunderbird uses the Ctrl-Enter key combination in order to send immediatly the email while it is composed. The default Ctrl-Enter key combination for inserting a new line in a cell leads to mistakes. For example, I spent half an hour editing a Calc document with a lot of new lines in cells. When I came back to Thunderbird in order to send this document, I sent immediatly the email I was still writing just because I typed Ctrl-Enter in order to insert a new line because I didn't update the key map I had in mind when I took an other tool. This mistake couldn't occur with M Excel because it has Alt-Enter key combination instead.
Maybe you are angry for that, but it is not a reason to do such change on a so consolidate behavior.
Why competitors choosed the Alt-Enter instead in order to insert a new line in a cell ?