if you have a word document, you should load it with "file > import > get text".
i'm not sure whether docx files can directly be imported with the formatting, but if you convert them to odf files (the libreoffice / openoffice format for writer files) it must work.
1.5.x will probably handle your files better better than 1.4...
scribus currently does not keep the formatting when copy pasting. it would of course be possible to do add such a feature, but it's not as easy as it sounds, since scribus is a multiplatform program and each platform (windows, mac os x, different types of linux, ...) have their way to put the formatting in the clipboard.
it's not a necessary feature for scribus, but i agree that it would be a handy one: if somebody wants to contribute code to scribus, this could be a useful project to go for : - )