For pdf export, you can just org-export-to-pdf. In the background it translates your doc to a latex file and then compiles that (I know you stated you didn't lile tex, but in case you can bear a few command this is actually super useful as it gives you more control over the doc, you can just insert random latex part in your doc and it will handle them nicely). Same for publishers. You can just translate your file to tex and that will fit most of the publication processes. Otherwise you can just convert your doc to pretty much anything with pandoc (including .docx).

Keep in mind however that this is basically just saying: I like the idea of latex (fine granularity at compile time, raw text and reproducibility) but I prefer org markup for common marks like headers, bold and refs, and I like having a somewhat pretty editor. If your issue with latex is that writting and formating are not synchronous, than yeah this is not for you.