This may focus on academic slides but those with presentation with complex setup, please feel free to share your thoughts. For equation heavy talks plus diagram heavy layout (arrows left right, boxes, callouts), do you still build everything in PowerPoint, or do you prefer LaTeX Beamer?

Also do you ever do a two step process: make the equations and core layout in LaTeX, export to PDF, then add arrows and boxes on top in PowerPoint or another tool? If yes, what tool and what export settings work best?

Reveal.js for me. Can still use latex equations via Mathjax.

I use sent from suckless. To include equations, just include them as a picture.

I tend to do the inverse of the two-step process you mention. Make the diagrams in Libreoffice Draw, export as .pdf, then use \includegraphics{} in Beamer.

I'm a biologist/bioinformatician—a lot of my presentations require some schematic representation of the analysis or pipeline.

I tend to build simple pipelines with PowerPoint and add animations (makes it easier for me to talk through step by step). If it's complex, I build parts in some other thing (R, illustrator/Photoshop), and animate the PDF/PNG in.

Equations I try to avoid because most of my audience tends to gloss over them. On the occasion that I'm talking to more computational folks, I'll build the equation elsewhere, export it as an image, and animate it in with annotations.

Again, I'm a biologist and present mostly to biologists, so some of this may seem stupid or nonsensical to folks in other fields.

I use LaTeX Beamer together with draw.io and mermaid diagrams. I don't really like Tikz and never got used to it. However, it sounds like for you, this might be a helpful question (with answers): https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/498814/whats-the-best-and-quickest-way-to-insert-latex-equations-into-powerpoint

I think it's also important to mention Typst here (https://typst.app/) even tho it's not directly related to the question. Typst is basically much faster LaTeX alternative with reasonable syntax. For example, take a look at this theme: https://typst.app/universe/package/calmly-touying