I would love to be able to publish my documents as .odt, .pdf etc. so that i can send people an actual file, instead of my document as a web page.

I think there is a greasemonkey script for that, but now that i think of it thats for downloading as any type of file.

Google Documents can be saved as PDF and ODT...
And Spreadsheets can also be published as PDF and ODT...
But I guess you want the Document's PDF have an online accessible URL?

Yes, exactly, for the filetypes which you select

You can always just save them as your desired filetype and host them on Google Pages, and link people there.

From what I know, this works.

For spreadsheets:

spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=[VALUE]&output=pdf
spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=[VALUE]&output=xls
spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=[VALUE]&output=ods
etc.

For documents (you need to be logged in, but with any Google account):

docs.google.com/MiscCommands?
command=saveasdoc&exportformat=doc&docID=[VALUE]
docs.google.com/MiscCommands?
command=saveasdoc&exportformat=oo&docID=[VALUE]
docs.google.com/MiscCommands?
command=saveasdoc&exportformat=pdf&docID=[VALUE]