I'm actually curious what you're doing that causes this. Basically all my figures are \begin{figure}[ht] and everything works out fine. Yeah sizing can sometimes be odd but I save it for the end (I use \includegraphics[width=0.x\textwidth] and adjust x. I get it in 2 or 3 attempts). I only invoke graphicx. I use \FloatBarrier frequently but that's trivial. I use jpg, jpeg, png, and pdf images almost exclusively (wish gif worked and wished mp4 would save into the pdf). I do also invoke tikz and pgfplots when I'm making vectorized plots and graphs (I know this is "advanced"), but I'm not writing tikz pictures in most documents. I do all my homework, papers, presentations, etc (PhD student) in LaTex. Been using it for almost a decade now and I've only faced placement problems when I was just starting and didn't know about [ht] (or [h!]).
I'm not sure what you find difficult about margins. You define them in document class. It is literally top, bottom, left, right, or height, width. Or you use the template that a publication is giving you. Are you doing something more complicated? If so, I can't imagine this is common.
Headers and footers? I never use headers. But I use footnotes (\footnote{this is all you need}).
Honestly I'm curious what issues you face. I'd gladly lend a hand (LaTeX is far from trivial) and I'd like to learn from others. But I'm honestly confused at the complaints. There's plenty of things to complain about LaTeX, but these aren't the challenges I face.
Yes, this is the same way that I use LaTeX, and have been using it for almost as long as you. However, when you first started out, how long did it take you to figure out this stuff? My original comment was in response to the “accessibility” of LaTeX, and honestly I don’t think it’s that accessible.
As for margins, I’ve had issues where changing the margins makes the page numbering “fall off” the page, and as for headers and footers, asserting that you “don’t need” them is not a valid option for many people producing documents.
Also to be clear, I’m not saying LaTeX is impossible or even hard to use, I’m complaining that certain tasks in it should be so much easier than they are.
I'm not sure what you find difficult about margins. You define them in document class. It is literally top, bottom, left, right, or height, width. Or you use the template that a publication is giving you. Are you doing something more complicated? If so, I can't imagine this is common.
Headers and footers? I never use headers. But I use footnotes (\footnote{this is all you need}).
Honestly I'm curious what issues you face. I'd gladly lend a hand (LaTeX is far from trivial) and I'd like to learn from others. But I'm honestly confused at the complaints. There's plenty of things to complain about LaTeX, but these aren't the challenges I face.