Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think what you call formatting is an essential part of textual representation (alas! It's also the most contentious part). A

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think what you call formatting is an essential part of textual representation (alas! It's also the most contentious part). After all, formatting is an essential part of how we write and read novels, articles, etc. In this sense, I think text with formatting is pure text... for human consumption. I am arguing it is the ultimate representation: for historical reasons, of course, but also because there is less friction with tooling, less vendor lock in, fewer standards that must be developed and adopted universally, etc.