[fsh]

I disagree. LaTeX is very good at layouting test, and can also (reluctantly) put figures into the text. Anything else is a huge hack (like TikZ), and one constantly runs into crazy limitations such as the fixed-point math and the lack of a decent visual editor. Slides should never have paragraphs of text on them, so the layouting is not very useful, but the other limitations are very annoying.

[goku12]

TikZ and Asymptote are more or less the only general-purpose modular illustration markup languages we have around. Anything better is welcome, but graphical editors are not an alternative in some cases.

[mgaunard]

The whole point is to focus on the data and how it is connected, not on the rendering. You want the ability to model your figures as a program which can be tweaked and extended as needed, used as a framework throughout the deck.

Drawing every single figure by hand with a graphical tool is not at all something I'd even consider.