I agree it would be a pain having to adjust row shading through a whole table each time you added a row; also, I'd sooner have this sort of thing under my control than just press a button and hope for the best … but have you taken a look at Insert > Tables > Quick tables? and/or Page layout > Table tools > Design? Some code-monkey may already have come up something that does what you're supposed to want ;-} (not that I use any of these options myself)