This is a weird experiment to me because links (that's what 'which one do you click' means, right?) should be based on other factors besides their emphasis and

This is a weird experiment to me because links (that's what 'which one do you click' means, right?) should be based on other factors besides their emphasis and weight, although ideally they're bolded simply to stand out from the rest of the copy. I'd knock the italics out of the running completely because of how sloppy they can render across operating systems, depending on the typeface and the user's ClearType settings.