I think this doesn't solve the problem it aims to solve. Sure, the symbols are gone and replaced with words, but does that make the special word required in a

I think this doesn't solve the problem it aims to solve. Sure, the symbols are gone and replaced with words, but does that make the special word required in a given situation any easier to memorize? The symbols in markdown were chosen to match the way people already write informal text online, so it is not like they are just pulled from space. And yes, it's true that with this syntax, you don't need to remember which order the brackets go in for links. But you still need to remember in which order to put the URL versus the link text, so the problem there is not fully eliminated either.