Hard to remember. <b> and <i> are easier to remember than 1 and 2 (or is it 2 and 1) and now I have to figure out how to escape a damn asterisk, and how to do b

Hard to remember. <b> and <i> are easier to remember than 1 and 2 (or is it 2 and 1) and now I have to figure out how to escape a damn asterisk, and how to do bold italic. Too much stuff to figure out. HTML is easier.