Welcome Ginger!
Re: "WYSIWYG is last-century te technology," WYSIWYG is based on the typewriter -- when was the last time anyone used a typewriter?!? The problem with the WYSIWYG approach is that it means functionality must be hidden, which tends to make the software difficult to use. And this approach does not scale up very well. The more new automated features that are added, the more difficult the software becomes.
Also, WYSIWYG software must rely on artificial intelligence, which can never be as good as the real intelligence that comes with structured markup. That's why the results of switching to SGML/XML can be dramatic. I know of one organization that produced one publication every two weeks using their WYSIWYG software. With their Arbortext Editorapplication, they produced more than one publication every day!
How is this possible? Newer, better technology than WYSIWYG.
Re: formatting, some folks estimate their authors spent as much as 50% of their time on formatting with previous WYSIWYG products -- and all that effort resulted in documents that were not consistently formatted! (When I started my first FOSI development project, I soon realized that no two sample documents were alike.) With a batch formatting process, you can build the formatting specs and corporate identify and style guidelines into the stylesheet and get consistently formatted output every time -- in less time than before!
To help authors make the break from WYSIWYG, I recommend using a screen FOSI whose purpose is to facilitate authoring not mimic print/PDF output. For example, the attached screen-font.bmp shows the Edit window formatted with a screen FOSI that attempts to replicate formatted output, including the generated asterisks. Compare it to better-screen.bmp, which is formatted with a screen FOSI that uses an easy-to-read font and size so authors don't need to zoom in and out. Color, rather than size and white space, distinguishes chapter and section titles, which means more content fits on the screen and authors don't need to do so much scrolling. Everything is flush left, which is also helpful for authors.
A screen FOSI can help authors in other ways. For example, the attached guidelines.bmp graphic shows a message in the Edit window that does not need to be deleted and will never appear in print -- unless you want it to. For example, the attached 30days-editor.png shows messages in the Edit window, while 30days-print.bmp shows the print/PDF output of the same source file with different messages.
Another example: The attached profile1.bmp shows the Edit window formatted for a subject matter expert to author/edit the Part Description. Everything else on the screen cannot be changed. With a different FOSI, the same content could be displayed in an entirely different way, with all content available for editing.
In addition, you can rather easily develop a print stylesheet that supports a double-spaced, single-column, draft printout in a monospaced font so the content can be reviewed independently of the formatting.
You may also want to check out my Top 10 Reasons Tags Are Better at