It's not TMI, nor is it unnatural- it is ultimately just a variation on every other large document. Without styles, adjusting line spacing is a more labour-intensive task since you can't just select all and do it. Tables of Contents without styles is also labour-intensive.

You do need specialised section breaks (probably even page section breaks) to finish a chapter and setup a graphic page facing the chapter heading.

__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia