office compatibility mode

This published slideshow (ack) details some inconsistencies across different applications in the Office 2007 suite of applications, significant enough that make rolling out Office 2007 not as straightforward as it should be.  Ideally you should be able to roll out the new version with something checked for "Always save in this format", and then magically one day, when everyone has the new version, flip a big switch in the sky that has the default document format be the newest, latest and greatest.

<rant>
I wonder why we haven't scaled back the huge scope of all these applications.  Why hasn't anyone turned back to the page layout model, where one lays out blocks of text, spreadsheets, etc, on a page using applets (as in Word, Excel, image manipulation app, etc) instead of having all of these monstrosities that each sort of reinvent the wheel with each program?

And is it really that important to spend 10 hours making a document designed for internal consumption look like the Taj Mahal?

I have a feeling that in my office most documents designed for internal consumption might someday be all web based anyhow, a more user driven intranet, something that we're seeing already and might hopefully gain complete office staff wide acceptance.  Perhaps when that happens we'll go back to the model where we turn over blocks of raw content (via hyperlinks!) over to a dedicated person in the office to essentially type-set it in a more pristine fashion.  And we can get back to work that we would rather do, which trust me, isn't making sure that my hanging indents are 0.5" over on all of my references.
</rant>

A slightly confusing read, and would have better been published in a PDF style doc, but none-the-less should probably be read prior to rolling out Office 2007 to normal office users.