Another problem with most WYSIWYG editors is that they use absolute positioning with CSS. Geek, you obviously don't worry about browser compatibility when it comes to designing web pages so I can understand if you don't know what I'm talking about.
An effective language has to be limited. The idea of endless expansion does not do well in a language. It has to have a limited vocabulary and syntax. You build more features by using what is already there.
Do you know how many functions and global variables PHP has? PHP has 3079 functions and a whole lot more reserved variables. I'd say less than 500 of those are used in this forum. Look at the diversity of applications that enables you to create.
IMO, a newbie should learn HTML after he has done some actual web design.
This leads to bad habits like using HTML attributes without quotes, using the <font> tag etc. etc. XHTML is what people should be learning now. Dreamweaver CS4 does do a good job with browser compatibility, as well as keeping loading times to a minumum and using the latest standards.
But for me, there's nothing like spending an hour creating a page with Notepad++ and then opening the browser only to find about 7 PHP fatal errors.
The fun starts then when I have to look over 5000 lines of code.