I use RMarkdown for almost everything I type, regardless of if it needs to include code/math. Does anyone else do this?
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I do! I've set up several LaTeX templates for all my reports and homework. So then I can just write my homework in markdown and knit it to a nice little customized LaTeX template. Very useful to not have to deal with all the ill-will Microsoft Word causes.
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That's exactly what I do! I just wanted to know other people did it to, because I had to explain to someone why I would choose to write what appears, to the layperson, to be a very complicated document when I could just use Word. 
I experimented with this approach, but found that the benefits of Rmarkdown's simplicity weren't enough to outweigh the advantages of Google Docs (or G Suite or whatever they're calling it now): cloud hosting + easy sharing/co-authoring features + excellent default settings.
When it comes to document layout, I don't think it's a hyperbole to say that anything beats working in MS Word/Office. In Google Docs or Slides I've found that a combination of wide document margins and invisible tables (i.e., 0px borders) is by far the easiest way to arrange my content the way I want:
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I fell in love with Markdown in general, and now use markdown to write stuff. However, I don't use RStudio and Rmarkdown for this. I fire up Atom and type in there.
I guess you're saying you just open up Rstudio and create plain text markdown docs there?
Yeah, similar to what @dylanjm said, I have some templates I created which merged RMarkdown and LaTex so I can easily create documents with the same formatting regardless of if I'm including code or not. All of which is done in RStudio.
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I do this all the time for documentation and things like that. I find that being able to write in plain text focuses my attention somewhat and allows me to focus on content first, without being distracted by layout and things like that, which I fix at the end.
Bookdown is also awesome for documentation projects!
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I use RMarkdown to HTML for my class lectures, and RMarkdown with LaTeX templates for class handouts, assignments, and pretty much everything else! I'd use it for exams as well but haven't quite worked out the LaTeX template yet.
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I use markdown for a lot a things like documentation, report, notes, presentation and others like that. I find it pretty efficient to work in plain text format and being able to generate multiple output from the same markdown. Working in markdown allows to work with git project and share on our Gitlab - I find git mechanism useful for this kind of project too and it is easier to collaborate on documentation with other developper.
Depending on the project I use Rmarkdown in RStudio even with plain text or another markdown editor (for one page doc or notes). All the great 
helpers in R for creating publication ease a lot the work: I find it a lot easier to work with xaringan in Rmarkdown that create from scratch my owm remark.js presentation in HTML + Markdown. Also bookdown for documentation and blogdown for website open a lot of possibilites even without Math or R code
So yes use Rmarkdown with plain text markdown without code chunk and I find it useful ! 
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I’ve only started going in this direction for my academic work and I’ve found @kjhealy’s The Plain Person’s Guide to Plain Text Social Science to be really helpful as both a guide for setup as well as a higher level overview as to why it’s worth doing it this way. Definitely worth checking out if you’re thinking about leaving Word, Google Docs, etc.
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