LaTex knows about those and will try to avoid them.
Latex provides end results which are acceptable, typography-wise. Word is merely a word processor and cannot be trusted to produce the actual end result.
No, LaTeX does not know anything about rivers and has no detection mechanisms for them. The line-breaking/spacing algorithms in TeX are just to old for that level of computational intensity.
There are some LuaTeX packages which can detect, but not fix, rivers, though their scalability is questionable.
I enjoyed (at the time) technical writing using WordPerfect, FrameMaker, and InDesign. Getting the typography, page breaks, word wrap just so is very satisfying. Driving FrameMaker was a lot like programming, in the level of control and precision. Still miss it.
I was ambivalent towards PageMaker. Never used Quark for work, though I've met many fans.
I reserve special loathing for Word.
Word 6 was pretty good, and I used it enthusiastically.
But everything since has been user hostile. Getting the document you want is like fighting a surly baboon with Tourette's syndrome. You just have no idea what's going to be printed. There's no way to predict cause and effect (so you end up using a very limited set of features). And god help you if you change anything about your install (eg open the same doc on another computer, upgrade a driver).
Word does "just fine" in the same sense that cheap wine or non-DSLR cameras do "just fine" for the majority of people. But that's a separate issue to quality.
Non-sequitur. There are plenty of non-DSLR tools for photography (TLR, rangefinders, large-format film) that are more than "just fine, and even within the world of digital, your average prosumer DSLR can't do the same thing as a setup with a medium format digital back. Give up the snobbery, DSLR does not necessarily equate to quality or superiority.
But most of them do not use it and expect to get good typography. Word is usually used for things where proper typography does not matter, things that in the past were written on type writers.
For example, take the simple subject of rivers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_(typography)
LaTex knows about those and will try to avoid them.
Latex provides end results which are acceptable, typography-wise. Word is merely a word processor and cannot be trusted to produce the actual end result.