Aaron, I’ve tried to get into markdown a few times, but generally find it more intrusive, and occasionally I find as you do that some links don’t always form properly. I’ve been writing into text editors for so long that adding raw html has never felt too onerous or any more onerous than html anyway. If I’m replying to something short, I’ll typically add it as I go, otherwise, I’ll write longer pieces and add markup after-the-fact. One day someone will create and editor that just does all of this directly through brain waves and we won’t need to worry. Until then I just choose to deal.