Since the change tracking is a very effective tool, all of the groups I've worked with have used it. Hidden text could possibly be used as described; but all the "experienced" Word user I've known always work in a "Show All" mode in which hidden text is visible - all the time - unless temporarily "turned off."

The reasons for using a viewing mode that "shows everything" while constructing a document is that it's the only way to tell whether an alignment is a tab, margin, outdent, indent, reformat, etc., or to see other "structural elements" that you need to know about in order to work efficiently within the document.

Using hidden text format in this way gives you no good way to "finalize" the document except by finding and deleting the unwanted versions using a style or format search, which would seem to be more of a manual thing if done by text format, but is done automatically using the Review toolbar.

Note also that Word (with nearly all printers) allows the option of printing hidden text and/or edits/corrections/comments. If you leave any of this stuff in a document that you send "out of org" you have no way of knowing what it will look like, or what it will print, for the recipient.

There are lots of options. The only requirement is that you understand the methods you - and your associates - choose to use.

John