The main reason is that the processor was never JS-native. First Python, then Ruby, and then it got transpiled all over. Sure, today Asciidoctor.js is damn slic

The main reason is that the processor was never JS-native. First Python, then Ruby, and then it got transpiled all over. Sure, today Asciidoctor.js is damn slick, but it took a while, and Opal.js has had some rough shakes. The second reason - and a close tie with above - is that features aren't free. *Asciidoc is more complex than Markdown*, no way around that. The fact that you can also monkey around with transclusion and conditionals doesn't help things either - you can really dig yourself into a hole with transclusion unless you plan things very very carefully. Digression: I want to expand on that point a moment. Document engineers have known that transclusion+conditionals were problematic functionality since 1994; it's why HTML never got transclusion as a core function, it breaks natural language documents. All the DITA/xinclude/"content re-use" people came from outside the initial technical GML/SGML group, and DITA architects were exclusively polisci/psych/pedagogical academics. There were some raised voices in the late 90s/early aughts, which we're still paying for to this day. Note that Antora - the Asciidoc build system - has an "opinionated" architecture, it's for this same reason: managing the complexity of transclusion. OK, digression over. The third reason is the name. All due respect, but "asciidoc" is kind of meaningless, they'd have been better off drawing a clearer line between Asciidoc and DocBook. Something like LiteBook, or DocDown. "Asciidoc" though, makes a connotation that the central feature is the text encoding, and that's not really a substantial selling point. Having that DocBook lineage is; that's like Return of the King kind of lineage, if Aragorn had been lost in the XML wilds and then returned to the old design philosophy of GondorML to marry a hot elf.