The output of Tex is superior to anything else. I doesn't change the fact that the user experience is awful. But if you want Tex quality with less head-bashing

The output of Tex is superior to anything else. I doesn't change the fact that the user experience is awful. But if you want Tex quality with less head-bashing, Context is much better than Latex. It's what I use for my thesis, but not for my papers -- templates are all Latex, and I didn't know about it at the time. Also I disagree with your basic point: hours of my time are worth much more than some fancy ligatures and fluff that makes the text look very marginally better.