Actually the wordpad in Windows 7 at least can open .docx, as can Openoffice, which is free for everyone (permission to install notwithstanding).
I usually don't have a problem with RTF files (in Linux, using Oo.org), until the other person's exporter munges it. Textedit on OS X should read .rtf just fine, too (although maybe not some of the newest crap Microsoft decided the format needed). It's
supposed to be a very stable format, and it's human readable if you don't mind a bunch of control codes in the way. Of course, MS often likes to change things just to slow competitors down, and this format is certainly no stranger to this concept. So, .doc is easier, because its support is practically guaranteed by just about any OS in some way.
I wouldn't even have a problem with straight .txt files, as long as they didn't want any real formatting. Just double enter for each paragraph and I'm good to go. I'll just open it in OO and save it as .doc so I can enter notes.
This original thread came up because of recent non-standard submissions. I think the overwhelming response is "We'd prefer you send us things in .doc format, because practically anyone *can* read it. We don't care what you write it in, since there are a lot of different solutions to that. And please name your email title and document using a standard convention, which is actually listed in the rules for this board." Anything else in this thread is just a bunch of "well, my way of doing things is..." which only helps someone else if they're interested in a potentially better way to write their stuff. Oh yeah, and all of our technical knowledge about why things suck.