My big beef isn't necessarily with Microsoft Word itself, but with word processors in general. Alot of people spend so much time focusing on trying to style what they have without being concerned about the content they write. It sucks for collaborative writing, and also breaks the content should you want to do something other than print or save as PDF (which few people do sadly).
I don't think that it's necessarily horrible that people are using such tools, but it does sadden me that other ones are so often overlooked.
While I'm unsure of how well it works in Windows (since I largely use it in Linux), I'm a big fan of
LyX for writing documents. It allows you to write papers while having the computer deal with the typeface and style through LaTeX.
LyX lets you write math equations very easily and insert images and figures for documents. Which is something I think most word processors really need by default, but instead opt for a million other features that are barely touched by people.
It also lets you export it cleanly to many formats should you want to print it, share it as a PDF, or post it online. It's really handy.
Otherwise, wikis are good for collaboration, and desktop publishing programs are good for exact layout. Ihardly touch word processors unless somebody happens to send me a document that requires one.
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