If I may step out of the bikeshed for a moment, the editing part is
much harder than using whatever software checks in the edits.
My wife has a steady side job editing (or often rewriting) theses for
foreign graduate students. These students are plenty smart, and they
know their topic, but they are mostly from east Asia and their English
grammar is not good.
Editing these is a lot of work, and invariably requires multiple
passes to go back and ask what they meant and rewrite the parts that
need it. This is something that IETFers with good English can do, but
it's significant work, and the final document is different enough from
the original that Word-style diff marks would only tell you that a
whole lot has changed.
+100
This is exactly what I was trying to say; John just said it better than I did.
Editing someone else's work competently means seeing things from their
perspective, at least to some extent. This is difficult even with someone you
know well; with someone you don't know well and from a different culture
it's really quite difficult and takes a *lot* of time.
When I start a serious editing pass on a document I usually start by reading it
several times, carefully, from beginning to end. (If I'm already familiar with
the document I read it backwards to try and prevent my eyes from sliding over
issues.) I then wait at least a day, sometimes two, then read it again. Only
then will I start to edit.
Sometimes the toolset really is critical; in this case it's a niggle.
In fact I'll go so far as to say that if you think the editing part is simple
and easy you're not doing it right.
Ned