I do get and understand your point and frustrations and would again suggest you look at Freeway.
Personally I've found DW CS3 to be as easy to use as previous versions, but then it was a hell of an initial learning curve.
Freeway could well be more up your street.
My problem with Quark and its poor code is compliancy and accessibility. Both are things that shouldn't be over-looked. The thing is, as you say, sometimes the CSS doesn't do what you want, but the fact is it may do what you want in one browser and not in another - that's bad. You need to learn more about how to make a site work in all browsers in a manner you want unless you're content to have a 'shop window' that only those that don't wear glasses can see. I think that's a good analogy because a site that doesn't work reliably in all browsers is, effectively, only available to some users.
Accessibility is also an important, though mostly overlooked, issue. Again, an inaccessible site is just that - a site some can't use.
And as you'll be well aware anyone who can't use your site, won't use your services.
Then there's the code - sure it matters less, and purists will say DW's code is too verbose, but it does still matter to a degree. Speed of loading is very important even with broadband being more common. The trick is to design to the lowest common denominator so thinking it terms of how fast a site will load on dial-up is more important. And every Quark generated site I've seen is slow enough to make me leave before it's loaded fully. Remember web users are notoriously impatient.
Sure, Quark can do all the things you're asking of it, with you requiring very little new learning. But then think back to when you started using Quark professionally - you needed to learn truck loads about how things will and won't work, didn't you. It's the same with doing stuff for the web. Frankly I don't see how one can expect a predominantly print design based package to excel at anything else and since Quark no longer excels at all I'd still maintain they should drop the web side of it and fix the print side. I understand the 'utopian' view of a perfect program that can create a piece then re-purpose it for any medium, but I can't see it happening without each piece being a mess.
So I'd say you're not stuck between a rock and a hard place as you suggest, but instead not quite looking in the right place. Forget Quark unless you really, really want to go that route and look at other packages (including free ones) that can produce a much more slick end result. Try Freeway, look at Nvu, hell you could even look at Joomla (joomla.org) which is a CMS and uses templates to build dynamic websites from a database. Most of my sites now are done through that and man it's easy. Plus they meet all the criteria I use - compliancy so they work reliably and accessibility so all can use them.
Good luck mate, it's fun learning new stuff!
Greg
I think therefore I am, you're pink therefore you're spam