I haven't followed the thread but I have tried Lout as an alternative to
LaTeX:

-TeX algorithms rewritten in C (and reportedly even better).
-Much simpler setup and IMHO to use overall.
-Very small to download.
-Produced PDF directly, no problem to use TrueType fonts.
-Fast.
-Has support for graphing, tables etc.

Worth a look, I used it on NT4 to write a report for a company and I
learned it very fast.

regards, Göran