Should be a simple way to tell InDesign (and later Acrobat) that a table is a form.

Column A are the Field names, column B are the blank fields. No field recognition necessary, just spreadsheet logic. Even a dialog where you define which rows/columns are what would be a huge boost.

Would save 3 headaches: 1) not knowing if Acrobat will recognize the fields, 2) renaming each field 1-by-1, and 3) setting the text formatting 1-by-1 (Acrobat can batch this but InDesign can't).