Because rich text in general is just a minefield. Just get into copy pasting stuff from word to some browser rich text field - people will expect it works flaw

Because rich text in general is just a minefield. Just get into copy pasting stuff from word to some browser rich text field - people will expect it works flawlessly but I know it will break in dozen different ways. Problem is not with markdown - problem is with rich text in general. Markdown is useful as it limits the options to make stuff easier. Argument that you need post process it to be useful is not that good - because that is the point of markdown you have "raw" data that is easy to post process any way you want. If you need some really fancy embeds and changes then maybe it is just not the right tool? I don't use tables in markdown (besides maybe 3-rows 3-columns) but if you need more you probably should just stick with word/excel. I don't see a way to make tables in ASCII/UTF that would not suck.