[thanatropism]

So wait. You're saying maybe a more explicit language would be easier to use?

It makes sense. When I was just a kid and computers ran MS-DOS my dad did extensive amounts of work with a text editor that used SGML-like takes in angle brackets (but was like <bi> for begin italic, <ei> for end italic; I don't remember actual details). He was past 35, a classical musician and never a techie before (although obviously he wrote on typewriters before), but he basically learned it after less than half an hour of instructions with the guy who brought and installed the machine. Probably less than 10 minutes.

Maybe we're attracted to Markdown/YAML/Org, etc. out of a love of simplicity that's more due to aesthetics than practicality.