Asciidoctor PDF works as long as you are ok with what you could call the general "template" it uses. You can modify details within that, but if you want to change it, other approaches are required. Last time I had to deal with it I went with DocBook5 and then used a conversion to LaTeX to "break out". I agree with the asciidoctor guys about not offering more flexibility with that "template"; they have other things to focus on and it works well for cases where no specific layout is required.
