Word has change tracking for documents (although it only works up until you accept the changes) and you can also grep them (the text isn't encrypted). So I'm not sure either of your arguments will hold up under scrutiny. I'd love to give you the ammo to change this but I've become jaded and cynical with age.
We use MS Word for our docs (which is a huge improvement over the earlier choice (Lotus WordPro - ugh!).