On the Mac, word 5.1 was pretty good as WP programs go.
I've managed to crunch Word 98 down into a passable version of Word 5.1, but it's still far too bloated a program, with all kinds of irritations. However, as it seems to be such an industry standard, I've reluctantly stuck with it.
Just for jotting, I quite like Apple's Simple Text - it does exactly what it says on the tin, takes up sod-all memory and its documents can be opened by any text program in any platform (which is more than can be said for Micro$oft's stuff).
On my last newspaper we used a version of Lotus Notes for writing and, believe me, that was a crock of sh**!