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Problems
In general, these products are pretty stable. The problems discussed here are MS Word compatibility issues.
Strikethrough text doesn't always stay that way in OO-Writer when the document is reopened in Word. This is bug 34301, filed September 27, 2004. Unfortunately, there's no record of anything being done to fix it. TextMaker doesn't have this problem.
Another problem in both OO-Writer and TextMaker is that highlighted text generated in those programs can't be turned off from MS Word. Multiple issues have been filed with OpenOffice.org on this. The most current one was filed on December 15, 2003, but OpenOffice.org says it's Microsoft's fault and that it's not worth fixing. A workaround is mentioned (go to Character/Shading and select No Fill to remove the highlight), but if I tell an editor who uses Word to do this, he's going to ask, "So why didn't you do this in Word to begin with?" And he'd be right. He'd also be right to wonder if Linux office software will ever be ready for prime time. People want to work with documents on word processors without having to think about the mechanics.
This might seem trivial, but if you are doing collaborative document editing and passing a document back and forth for collaborative editing, the natural way to indicate changes is to highlight the words added and use strikethrough text to indicate deletions.
This is the issue that caused me to look into TextMaker to begin with. Most editors I work with are not Linux users and aren't planning to convert anytime soon. Now that I know that OpenOffice.org isn't going to fix this, this itself is enough to convince me that OO simply can't be used for professional writing applications or a variety of other professional uses involving collaborative editing until the world is covered with *nix desktops in a few years. If your editor runs OO, fine. Outside the Linux-specific press, they don't.
SoftMaker is working on the problem and hopes to have a fix in the next product revision. The OO workaround should work identically for TextMaker.
However, if you do not do collaborative document editing—if you generate documents for which you don't plan to have others do anything but read in MS Word—this isn't a problem for you.