I used to laugh at the LaTeX masochists in college spending 15 minutes just to put a picture where they wanted the picture to be. They had to add like four 1-character modifiers to the "insert image" command, each of which meant "yes, really here", "no, don't move it to the next page" and "nono, really really here".
MS Word is properly great if you only use the custom style rules (basically CSS classes) at the paragraph level, and never directly apply styling (basically inline styles) except for super basic stuff like making a word italic. Has great referencing tools etc, fantastic formula editor and so on. And, well, you can use ultra modern human-machine interaction technology such as a mouse to choose where a picture goes and how big it is.
(They might've enshittified it since; the last paper I wrote was in 2010 and Word was pretty damn decent back then)
MS word also has character styles (like a CSS style on a <span>). IMO you should use instead of bold or italic.
(There are three more types of styles: linked, table and List. See https://office-watch.com/2022/word-five-types-styles/)
But yeah for layout, ie headings and the likes, only ever use the styles, never "bold, bigger bigger bigger". Don't touch the line spacing button, etc etc.
IMO Word could do with a mode where those buttons are simply hidden. Want a bigger, fatter heading? Edit the heading style. There's no other way.
I'm pretty much still on the same setup now, Win11 plus touchscreen. You'll pry my touchscreen out of my cold dead hands. How will I rage-close a "try chrome" popup without a touch screen? You ever try to rage click something with a touchpad? Total non starter.