Why do I never learn?

I'm in the very final stages of putting together a what's hopefully the penultimate version of a manuscript, and now I've got to face up to the uncomfortable reality of having to conform my manuscript to the specifications of the journal template. This is precisely the type of jumping through hoops that I absolutely detest, because in doing so, I am not learning anything new, it does not add or subtract to the quality of what I've written, it does not in my opinion facilitate better communication of the results and arguments contained in the document. It is nothing but time-consuming, mind-numbing, soul-draining nonsense.

The astute reader might now wonder - why didn't I just start writing the manuscript using the template, then I wouldn't have to worry about this nonsense, and it would save time, effort and frustrations? Not a bad question at all, and I'm presently asking myself the same. As a matter of fact, during grad school my US advisors encouraged us to do just that, and I believe most of my fellow students complied.

So what kind of moron am I not to grasp this concept? The kind of moron who's tried that approach on several occasions and was left holding the bag because a) it's not exactly uncommon to start out writing the manuscript with one journal in mind, only to find a better suited journal as the document really starts to take shape, and b) some of these journals are infamous for frequently altering their templates. Both a) and b) have happened to me - scenario a) has admittedly occurred more times - and so I'm sticking to using a standard double-spaced Word document and EndNote.

However; presently, the reasoning underlying this allegedly flexible approach appears to be flawed, as I'm copying and pasting away into the new format. Damn!