@BrunoLeFloch No I don't, except that Maruku's syntax allows you to put extra style on elements so
*...*
becomes a useful handle to hook these things on. Anyway, Markdown itself isn't so bad, but then there's not a lot you can do with it. Where I
really miss the macro expansion is when it comes to mathematics. By the way, you might be interested in a sneak preview of a blog article:
tex.blogoverflow.com/files/2011/07/se-blog.pdf