Learning to build pages with WYSIWY(M)G before learning to hand code is like learning to use a calculator before learning arithmetic first.

Eric

this is only speaking from my own experience, but the ability to change even the tiny detail of a document easilly and quickly makes it worth-while.
That is, rewording a sentense doesn’t involve re-writing or re-typing (in the case of typewriters) the entire page, only to find another mistake, or area for improvement

This approch also allows changes to be easilly made at some point in the future, when the author might have new ideas (eg, say they’re writing a novel, are half-way through and get stuck. Later they come back with a different idea for the plot, and are able to change a few pages to move the plot in the new direction)

This effect is much more profound when wanting to make small changes to many pages (on paper you, of course, would have to rewrite each page in question)

Good usability design is always part of the process of a true professional, as is constant revision of what has been produced so far. To that end, I at least go through many revisions of a text before i consider it “finished”.
Word processing allows this to happen much quicker, and far more easilly.

So from my point of view, with regard to improved typography and usability of content, word processing is a good thing, which improves the quality of text which would otherwise suffer if trully done “by hand” directly on paper.