LaTeX feels ultimately like the wrong level of control. I'd either rather be simpler (Markdown) or have more control (CoNTeXt)

CoNText, for those unfamiliar, is a bit more modern...built to really take advantage of PDF features like full color and hyperlinks that LaTeX isn't as good at. Also much better control over figure placement, and is capable of things like sidebars that are somewhere between very fiddly to impossible in LaTeX.

ConText looks pretty good, but the formulas seem rather verbose with

    \placeformula[eqn:famous-emc]
    \startformula
         E = mc^2
    \stopformula

Compared to the quick an dirty latex:

    /[
        E = mc^2
    /]

Granted, with references in latex you'd need something pretty similar

    \begin{equation}\ref{eqn:famoues-emc}
         E = mc^2
    \end{equation}

I must say that the \begin{env} and \end{env} feel better to me that \startenv and \stopenv. Simply because it differentiates the environment name better.

Math isn't really it's strong point - but imagine typesetting something like a textbook.

Thanks for pointing out ConTeXt, I might try it out for my next presentation. The examples in the wiki seem to provide all that I need in a much more concise way that the LaTeX-Beamer package.

It's very powerful. Syntax isn't as nice as LaTeX (although it is much more consistent, since context is mostly developed by a single team instead of being a mass of extension), but you really have much more control (LaTeX floats are the devil incarnate).