I am sick and tired of text formatting in Word/OpenOffice, especially when it comes to incorporating math/science/engineering terms. How long would it take me to become proficient at LaTeX? What are the best educational tools/tutorials to learn LaTeX? What else is LaTeX useful for outside of science/math publication? Is there an easier to learn but equally useful alternative?

I am sick and tired of text formatting in Word/OpenOffice, especially when it comes to incorporating math/science/engineering terms. How long would it take me to become proficient at LaTeX? What are the best educational tools/tutorials to learn LaTeX? What else is LaTeX useful for outside of science/math publication? Is there an easier to learn but equally useful alternative?