There's the concept of escaping notation using a single backslash: \

So:

  **strong text** -> bold "strong text"
  
  \*\*doubled splats\*\* -> "doubled splats" w/ "**" on either side

This is also cumbersome to type, but at least there's a path to what you want to present even if the character is reserved for markup.

Yes. I'm less concerned about it being cumbersome to write than I am about it being cumbersome to read.

And again, this complaint will only be relevant in contexts where this specific convention is used.

rare enough to not matter