What do you find complicated/logically-inconsistent about LaTeX? The job it is supposed to do is nontrivial, so it seems appropriate that the tool is at least somewhat nontrivial, too, especially if you don’t like defaults.

It admittedly doesn’t compile to HTML and the compile-time can be on the order of minutes for very large documents, but are these really deal-breakers?

If you really don’t like LaTeX, have a look at org-mode, which seems to be able to fulfil most, if not all, of your requirements (not sure about compile times).