[vanderZwan]

I think we should either compare these languages in a plain text editing context, or when used with editors with support for the syntax. Anything else seems like an unfair comparison to me.

Because editors with MD support tend to have shortcuts for inserting a link or image too, so this isn't really an argument in favour of either syntax.

[deltaprotocol]

I agree with you. My intention was to perhaps highlight one of the ways that using Emacs can help someone be productive using markup (but as you pointed this is probably true of other editors with strong support for the language) and maybe help someone discover an important feature of the editor that they have missed.