Thank you so much for the pointer to the git-scm-book (in the context of asciidoc/pdf output etc). Sadly the pdf-version, isn't exactly well laid out. It suffers from similar issues that a lot of html-to-pdf-based tools (although I assume it's sgml-to-pdf in this case?) -- horrible breaks, and it also "feels" wrong wrt. some spacing/etc. Generally standard LaTeX will look (much) better than this without tweaking, IMNHO.

On the other hand, they also have an epub style sheet, and it appears (a little oddly) that the layout of the epub is better than the pdf.

FWIW most "heavily optimized" custom LaTeX styles I've come across tend to feel like being slapped in the face with MS Word -- and I think I've yet to encounter any that actually improve on the "standard" styles in any meaningful way (with possible exception of the APA style, which is ugly, but as it has to conform to APA, it's ugly by design. And looks better than most other APA conforming styles I've seen).

Still, having a starting point makes the job much easier -- so this is a great resource.