Paragraph layout

[ololololo]

using an enlarged "gallows" glyph

Well, perhaps the role of the gallows is not limited to a paragraph. For example, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. begins with qocseedy. Gallows only appear in the next paragraph.
It is possible that the encryption algorithm itself placed the gallows and the words associated with them closer to the beginning of the paragraph.

Notably, it does not employ coloured initials or rubricated pilcrows

They are there, but they are written in an "economical" style, i.e., the style of the entire manuscript:
   
   
   
Perhaps some of them are meaningless. I suspect. that p may be one of them.

In short, the layout and visual clues in the Voynich points to the authors being influenced more by working books than by library books.

This is logical. They simply didn't need to try. And why would you decorate an encrypted book? It could provide a clue to an attacker or pose a challenge for the decrypter.
In general terms, the simplicity of VMS doesn't seem surprising. It was probably not written by highly skilled scribes, and their goal was to create this book.