Flash Phluff?

So, somehow, I've become the default technical person at my job. Anything from "How do I make page numbers in Word?" to "We'd like to have some interactive charts. Can you learn Flash and make something like this?" It's the latter task that I'm investigating right now, although I know that I'm way over my head. In doing Google searches to find out how to make interactive charts that are linked to a database, I've found several products that do charting. I'm amused and kind of horrified at the cluttered, confusing charts that these companies have created to showcase all of the capabilities of their product. It's 3D, and animated, with sound effects! Never mind that all that crap doesn't make the data any more interesting. I offer a snapshot of one moderately bad example (I like to imagine Edward Tufte keeling over on seeing this):