That has as much to do with how bad Confluence Wiki Markup is as anything else. It doesn't allow any nesting of elements because an open tag is the same as a close tag:

  {panel}
  Content
  {panel} <- Close tag!

WTF? The same goes for tables:

  ||Header||Header||
  |Cel1|Cell|
  |Cell|Cell|

Terrible design for any markup language. Of course, we're talking about the same software that doesn't have templating (unless you count dumping form values into a fully editable page), doesn't support customization (yes, I've repeatedly been told this by customer service), doesn't support a custom homepage, or damn near anything else.

I can work with Confluence pretty well now, but I'm still bitter we chose it ata my job over something more flexible like MediaWiki.