Just read your rant/blogpost. You didn't give too many examples of what's wrong with LaTeX, but you did mention putting two images next to each other. Isn't this just:
\includegraphics{img1} \includegraphics{img2}
Or is that not what you meant?
\includegraphics{img1} \includegraphics{img2}
Or is that not what you meant?
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Latex_example_subfig...
You can reference either the whole figure by using the label inside the figure environment, or you can reference the subfigures using labels inside the subfigure environments.
I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm saying that if your needs are simple enough, you can get away without it.