[xixi77]

Link seems broken atm :(

Regarding the efficiency though, I would think (even disregarding new users of LaTeX) it would really depend on the length and content of the paper.

For longer papers with many formulas I'd pick straight LaTeX any time. Beside the formulas and look, this way once something looks good, it probably won't break in many unforeseen ugly ways when stuff is changed or added elsewhere. This in my experience is not the case with word processors, where you really need to review the whole document after any edit. Plus, working with text in a text editor is so much more efficient and enjoyable.

For things like slides and notes though, particularly when there are a lot of screenshots/graphics/tables/etc. in proportion to text, it's somewhere about 50/50 between Word and org-mode, which I then compile into pdf through either LaTeX or html. But I have accumulated a lot of templates and customization for the latter option to work well; without them, I would just be using Word.

Another factor is whether, and how often, it is going to be necessary to update the document with changed figures/tables/etc. This depends on how they are generated: if they come from an Excel spreadsheet, things work much smoother embedding them in Word; if they are generated by some code running, it's much easier to have the LaTeX document pick them up.