LaTeX Tooling Guide
What the OP describes is really long, drawn out, complicated mud wrestling.<p>I&#x27;ve been a good TeX user from the beginning of TeX and love TeX.<p>For the problem the OP addresses with LaTeX, there is a much easier solution:  And the candidates are ..., and may I have the envelope, please?  [drum roll].  
And the winner is [&quot;rip&quot;]:  Just use just TeX, that is, D. Knuth&#x27;s TeX with his standard macro collection Plain.  If get into trouble, then just get and read his book, <i>The TeXBook</i> -- as software documentation, it is exemplary.<p>I&#x27;m guessing that a TeX file sent to people who accept LaTeX will work fine.  That was the case the time I published in the Elsevier journal <i>Information Sciences</i>.<p>Want some cross reference macros?  Okay, I put my  TeX macro source code for cross references  at<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13630570" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13630570</a><p>in two parts in two posts where the
above URL is for the first part and
the second part is close in the
same HN thread.<p>The OP goes on and on about what
text editor to use for typing in
documents in TeX.  No problemo!
I just use my favorite general purpose
text editor KEdit with a few macros
specific to TeX.<p>With the TeX distribution I have is 
the  spell checker ASpell.  I use it
for nearly all my spell checking, in 
blog posts, e-mail, sure, TeX,
source code documentation, 
own notes on random subjects, etc.
ASpell was written by a bright, 
hard working person -- it&#x27;s darned
nice software, one of my favorite
tools.  I use ASpell just for
English, but IIRC it also can
work with French, German, etc.<p>TeX is fixed and unchanging, 
rock solidly standard, essentially
totally bug free, beautifully designed
and documented -- what&#x27;s not to like?<p>LaTeX?  Just to start, need at least two
books, each about twice the size of
Knuth&#x27;s one book, and IMHO nowhere
nearly as well written
(likely the case since next to nothing
in software or computer science
is written as well as Knuth&#x27;s book).
For more, of course there is the
TeX source code documentation
in Knuth&#x27;s <i>literate programming</i>
which I&#x27;ve long regarded as
just exemplary software 
development -- that is, IMHO
the most important part of software
is the documentation, clear enough
to make the actual programming
language statements obvious because
otherwise when the code is written
&quot;only the programmer and God
understand it and six months later,
only God&quot;.<p>TeX was good enough for Knuth&#x27;s book
and, then, his series <i>The Art of Computer
Programming</i> and, thus, should be
up to the needs of a journal.<p>Or, in short, just use TeX, with
your favorite editor (hopefully
a good one that lets you write
some macros), write some
TeX macros, use ASpell, and
otherwise avoid the mud
wrestling and relax!