It's not wasted - formatting things properly is incredibly useful as it allows for effective communication without researchers having to think of every possible

It's not wasted - formatting things properly is incredibly useful as it allows for effective communication without researchers having to think of every possible ambiguity. The whole point of different journals existing is to allow people to publish to the ones that make sense for them, including the appropriate formatting. If you allow free-form submissions either you're going to need someone who is not familiar with the work to reformat it (and if it's more complicated than what a latex template can handle, it's probably not something you want a random editor doing either), or you publish things as they come in and wind up with a hodgepodge of poorly thought out formatting. Communicating is one of the most important parts of research, and researchers should be spending an appropriate amount of time on it.