I guess this is what I get for growing up with HTML. HTML has its shortcomings too, but is less inclined to drive me nuts when I want to write a structured document.
Current gripe...
This document has numbered sections. Makes a pretty TOC. But this numbering happens with the Bullets & Numbering tool. Now I come along and want to create an ordered list in one section. That is, nest a simple list (1, 2, 3, etc.) under the "whole-of-document outline list" without it either continuing numbering or restarting numbering. And I can't figure out a way to do it. So, I have to resort to bullets, even though an ordered list would be clearer and semantically better than an unordered list. Sigh.
I can always give it a go if you want?
Well, I was trying to keep it generic. I think I'd have the same complain if OpenOffice was used here - documents deserve structure, but many people do a bad job of it in word processors.
I conform in small ways. I love the Reading Layout in Word and like the ease of entering internal email addresses in Outlook. But they still annoy me in so many ways, particularly Outlook when it comes to email composition. I gain relief by using MacOS X at home (and soon FreeBSD as well).
I can always give it a go if you want?
Feel free. I'd be interested in knowing if it is possible to nest numbered lists, or whether that possibility just wasn't considered.
And now, here's a great little Outlook bug for you:
1. With message format set to Plain Text, create a New message.
2. Format menu -> HTML.
3. Select a heading in your email, then Format -> Style -> Heading 1.
Now your whole email is Heading 1. I call this a bug, because it doesn't happen if your email is HTML from the start. But there are other things that make it seem like MS is deliberately making message composition simplistic to drive people to the "Use Word to edit e-mail" option.