Hmmm... seems like you switched gears somewhere between the 3rd and 4th paragraph, but I guess you make a good point anyway. I've lost track of the times I've cursed MS Word, especially since it seems that the last several updates seem to have been mostly rearrangement of the user interface without adding anything useful.

You might want to try Scrivener from Literature & Latte (Mac version: http://howardleeharkness.com/MacScrivener), although it may well flunk your complexity criterion. And it's $45, which may be over your price threshold. But it's a pretty good book-writer's editor, and you don't have to use the features you don't want.