iWork for 95% of what I do. I share PDFs/printed paper of a good deal of what I do, and I like the way iWork templates give a big head start on making my stuff look professional. I find iWork very easy to work with. Most of what I need is great looking relatively simple documents. I'm not writing complex footnoted research papers.
I can use one application (Pages) to create many different types of documents: forms for internal use, forms for external use, letters, reports, meeting minutes, ads for the newspaper, rack-cards, brochures, class hand-outs, etc.
The content from many of the Pages documents are also used in Keynote documents, and
vice versa.
I was adoring iWork until I saw a printout from Pages. It was a complete disaster. The difference in line-spacing in a paragraph could reach as much as 1.5mm and was easily seen with a naked eye. I know neither of them (Pages/Word) is a professional typesetting software, but I just couldn't believe that Jobs let something like that go out...
I'm surprised, and I suspect it's something specific to your installation. I certainly have no issues with this line spacing, nor do I see it in other people's Pages documents. My sample is small, of course, but it's enough that I'm confident that it's your installation and not due to the application. Post this over at the Apple Community forums - they have one specifically for Pages, and there is some very high-powered help there. Good Luck.