GP seems to be using a definition of "better" that doesn't include difficulty. I agree that it's a bad decision when evaluating a markup language used in so many contexts as Markdown.
literally just referencing richard gabriel’s use of the word thats all. each side has genuine champions but usually one side is more purist (however defined) than the other and they lose 80% of the time
How does this make it better? Sounds like it makes it worse.
Maybe a better summation is "less is more".