[ckpwong]

If you think the ungodly hidden XML embedded in text copied from Word is its most hideous crime, try working with living, breathing 500-page "documents" (specifications, test plans, policies, manuals, procedures, what-have-you) which are simultaneously edited by multiple people all the time. Oh, and the document needs to be conformed to some "company standard formatting" which are meant to look good on paper but nobody really prints the whole thing out in real life.

THAT is probably a use case which happens more often in corporate America than the author's more specialized world of online publishing.

I don't think Word is the ideal tool for this case neither (I hear cursing directed at Word all the time), but it is the de facto standard.

As much as I want believe LaTeX is better suited for this task, nobody will use it. (Disclaimer: I last used LaTeX 12 years ago.)