If anyone in this thread has a talent for writing that compares to either Homer or Shakespeare, then we're in excellent company!

The rest of us, who can't necessarily achieve the desired effect through words alone, need typographic assistance — much like how I would need a bicycle to keep up with Haile Gebrselassie.

Markdown is "real plain text".

Why not just use letters and avoid punctuation ... that's all Markdown is: punctuation.

> Homer was able to write the fall of troy and Shakespeare Hamlet without bold text.

Oh really? Have you ever seen a manuscript?

Unlike handwritten text, plain text doesn't provide a means to underline, use italics, subscripts and superscripts, etc. Things like Markdown provide conventions for denoting such things in plain text.

> without bold text.

Are you sure they didn't use bold text, though?

maybe a thicker quill from a larger goose?

No, you just hold it a little differently. Twist it sideways, like.