Of the four things listed, I do believe Apple's Pages is the way to go. It produces nice results, easily creates PDFs and gives you all the tools needed to do the things you talk about. Others here may expand on that (I fully admit to having no experience creating more than a 4-8 page document with Pages). But in every other way - text flow, column control, image/graphic placement and text runarounds, etc., I was more than pleased.
It's been quite a while since I've launched Adobe InDesign, in fact.
Others may feel differently, but my vote is for Pages.
Does the new OS X App Store go online in Europe tomorrow as well, or is it just a U.S. launch? Because if all those promo screenshots at Apple's site are any indication, it looks to me like Pages may be able to be purchased separately from the bundled iWork suite, for around $20. I don't know if that's just a fake placeholder, but it's tough to imagine they'd have this kind of thing up (and used in the Lion preview keynote a few months back) if it wasn't so. That's a huge tease - and cruel rug-pull - to hit folks with at the last minute!
http://www.apple.com/mac/app-store/
But I don't know if tomorrow's launch is U.S.-only or worldwide.
If it
is worldwide - or at least throughout Europe - talk about great timing for you!
EDIT: I decided to check out the French version of Apple.com, and the same little orange triangle graphic announcing the App Store's launch tomorrow is present there as well:
check it out. (as long as "janvier" means "January", then I'm onto something.
That little notice wouldn't be there if it didn't apply to people in France looking at that site, right?
You
may be able to download Pages tomorrow, Dorian, for much less than the $79 you're currently budgeting for? Certainly don't go buying anything tonight, just in case...