In the last three decades of having the opportunity to learn and use TeX, i have managed to avoid it. In the same time i've helped a friend with word processing for her dissertation. I'm still not sure how we managed to get it to work with all the horror stories about data loss and Microsoft Word at the time. But it did its job and I'm still in the WYSIWYG camp. Maybe in another life...
I find Word is only tolerable when used like Latex. I.e., extensive use of Styles. Define a Style for every object type in your doc. Also, carefully choose the Next Style option. Define Sections if columns or pagination vary across the document. With that in hand, it is now just a matter of plugging in text and images. If something isn't working quite right, edit the Style instead of macdinking the text on the screen.
You are still left with formatting equations, but Word lets us use Latex-ish syntax for that now, so you can keep the fine control of Latex within the GUI context.
Don't get me wrong, I hate Word, but it is required in many environments. Adopting a rational use strategy helps a bit.