> these don't seem to have impaired their
reliability,
> performance, or sheer longevity: Being the 30-year de facto standard in
> academic publishing.
TeX is, well, sort of the "de facto standard". For the past ten years,
Word has done all the heavy lifting in academics, like it or not.
Maybe among the academics you know, but certainly not with the ones that
I deal with.
Incidentally, is there anything you don't claim to be an expert on?
-tony