Creé un contenedor para las clases de jExcelApi para exportar fácilmente listas de objetos a Excel. Para minimizar la creación de objetos, los formatos de celda se crean como campos estáticos y se reutilizan en llamadas consecutivas para exportar. Pero tengo problemas con el formato de fecha: la primera llamada funciona bien, pero en todas las exportaciones consecutivas, las celdas de fecha tienen formato numérico en lugar de formato de fecha. Si creo un nuevo objeto para el formato de fecha en lugar de usar un campo estático, todo está bien. ¿Hay alguna razón por la que falla el uso del mismo objeto de formato para diferentes hojas o libros?
Aquí está el código, con el manejo de excepciones simplificado, otros tipos de datos omitidos y probablemente faltan algunas importaciones:

ExcelCellGenerator.java:

import jxl.write.WritableCell;

public interface ExcelCellGenerator<T> {
 WritableCell getCell(int col, int row, T arg);
}

ExcelCellGeneratorFactory.java:

import jxl.write.DateFormat;
import jxl.write.DateTime;
import jxl.write.Label;
import jxl.write.NumberFormat;
import jxl.write.NumberFormats;
import jxl.write.WritableCell;
import jxl.write.WritableCellFormat;
import ExcelExporter.DateTimeExtractor;

final class ExcelCellGeneratorFactory {
 private ExcelCellGeneratorFactory() {}

 private static final WritableCellFormat DATE_FORMAT = new WritableCellFormat ( new DateFormat ("dd MMM yyyy hh:mm:ss")); // reusing this field fails

 static public <T> ExcelCellGenerator<T> createDateCellGenerator(final DateTimeExtractor<T> extractor) {
  return new ExcelCellGenerator<T>() {
   public WritableCell getCell(int col, int row, T arg) {
    return new DateTime(col, row, extractor.extract(arg), DATE_FORMAT);
                // if there is new WritableCellFormat(new DateFormat(...)) instead of DATE_FORMAT, works fine
   }

  };
 }
}

ExcelExporter.java:

import jxl.Workbook;
import jxl.write.DateFormat;
import jxl.write.DateTime;
import jxl.write.Label;
import jxl.write.NumberFormat;
import jxl.write.WritableCellFormat;
import jxl.write.WritableSheet;
import jxl.write.WritableWorkbook;

public class ExcelExporter<T> {
 // describe a column in Excel sheet
 private static class ColumnDescription<T> {
  public ColumnDescription() {}

        // column title
        private String title;
        // a way to generate a value given an object to export
        private ExcelCellGenerator<T> generator;
 }

    // all columns for current sheet
 private List<ColumnDescription<T>> columnDescList = new ArrayList<ColumnDescription<T>>();

    // export given list to Excel (after configuring exporter using addColumn function
    // in row number rowStart starting with column colStart there will be column titles
    // and below, in each row, extracted values from each rowList element
 public byte[] exportList(int rowStart, int colStart, List<? extends T> rowList) {
  final ByteArrayOutputStream outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
  WritableWorkbook workbook;
  try {
   workbook = Workbook.createWorkbook(outputStream);
  } catch (IOException e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
  }
  final WritableSheet sheet = workbook.createSheet("Arkusz1", 0);

  int currRow = rowStart;
  try {
   int currCol = colStart;
   for (ColumnDescription<T> columnDesc : columnDescList) {
    final Label label = new Label(currCol, currRow, columnDesc.title);
    sheet.addCell(label);
    currCol++;
   }
   currRow++;

   for (T object : rowList) {
    currCol = colStart;
    for (ColumnDescription<T> columnDesc : columnDescList) {
     sheet.addCell(columnDesc.generator.getCell(currCol, currRow, object));
     currCol++;
    }
    currRow++;
   }

   workbook.write();
  } catch (Exception e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
  } finally {
   try {
    workbook.close();
   } catch (Exception e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
   }
  }

  return outputStream.toByteArray();
 }

    // configure a Date column
    public ExcelExporter<T> addColumn(String title, DateTimeExtractor<T> extractor) {
  final ColumnDescription<T> desc = new ColumnDescription<T>();
  desc.title = title;
  desc.generator = ExcelCellGeneratorFactory.createDateCellGenerator(extractor);
  columnDescList.add(desc);
  return this;
 }

    // and test that shows the problem
    public static void main(String []args) {
        final ExcelExporter<Date> exporter = new ExcelExporter<Date>();
        exporter.addColumn("Data", new DateTimeExtractor<Date>() {
            public Date extract(Date date) {
                return date;
        }});

        // this file looks OK
        FileOutputStream ostream = new FileOutputStream("C:\\tmp\\test1.xls");
        try {
            ostream.write(exporter.exportList(0, 0, Collections.singletonList(new Date())));
        } finally {
            ostream.close();
        }

        // but in this file date is shown in cell with numeric format
        final ExcelExporter<Date> exporter2 = new ExcelExporter<Date>();
        exporter2.addColumn("Data", new DateTimeExtractor<Date>() {
            public Date extract(Date date) {
                return date;
        }});

        ostream = new FileOutputStream("C:\\tmp\\test2.xls");
        try {
            ostream.write(exporter2.exportList(0, 0, Collections.singletonList(new Date())));
        } finally {
            ostream.close();
        }
    }
}