Between too much and too little

Once in a while I have a project that does not require all the bells and whistles of OO/LO Writer or MS Word but a few more "conveniences" than MS Wordpad. My question is actually two questions:
1. Are there any third-party add-ons for Wordpad to make it a little bit more than next-to-nothing?
2. Is there any alternative word processing software out there that falls somewhere between Word/Writer and Wordpad?

I have "binged" and came up with a zillion offers of stuff that does everything but the only way to find out is to download, install, use and uninstall (leaving all kinds of crap in the registry).

I have come to the experts for advice.
Thanks in advance and regards.

Thanks very much WHS for your reply.
It might have inadvertently escaped your attention that I mentioned LibreOffice in my original post and was asking for something like it but with fewer bells and whistles BUT with more than Wordpad.

I, too, missed your mention of Word/Writer as referring to LibreOffice.

I also use LibreOffice, on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. My first word processor was WordPerfect for Windows 5.1 back in '92, haven't been without it since because it has a few features I find easier to use. There's also the free Apache OpenOffice and the free IBM Lotus Symphony with its WordPro word processor and Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet.

The only issue I've had for a few clients that used to run Works on WinXP is that OpenOffice 4.x does not have support for the older Works files while LibreOffice 4.x does.