[pfultz2]

First, there is commonmark that is trying to standardize markdown. There is also recommonmark which will parse commonmark for sphinx:

https://github.com/rtfd/recommonmark

However, commonmark currently lack support for tables, so I fall back on rst for tables(actually I think the syntax for tables in rst is much better than tables in other markdown flavors).

Also, resolving links using commonmark in sphinx is a mess, right now. I actually extended recommonmark so sphinx will properly resolve cross references(including reference to elements in a domain). However, I had to update sphinx as well, which I have a PR open with no response from them, here:

https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx/pull/2644

It seems unfortunate that sphinx devs are unresponsive to contributions. The devs for mkdocs are a lot more responsive, but seem more interested in monetary contributions, unfortunately.