It isn't painful. I do doco in DocBook XML myself. I write it with a text editor and view it with a WWW browser or (when I am using a terminal) a TUI DocBook XML viewer that I wrote.

Too-little known fact: with a small amount of CSS, mainstream WWW browsers can view most DocBook XML directly. Witness:

* http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/commands/linux-vt.xml

* http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/commands/linux-console...

* http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/commands/console-docbo...