What about a .dot file? It's pretty simple.

  digraph publish{
    AUTHOR -> EDIT
    EDIT -> PUBLISHED
  }

voilla! a state diagram. What's that? you want metadata?

  digraph publish{
    AUTHOR => EDIT  [ key="SUBMIT" 
                      buttonText="Submit to Editor"
                      privilegesRequired="SBMT"
                    ]
  }

et voilla. The modularity can find it's way in the code implementing the state machine actions. Not sure what "anti-abstraction" means, but I find the above pretty easy to read.

Also, you get free diagrams via graphviz.