I'm not sure I understand why. You could do what you say is necessary by providing a dhtml wysiwig html editor for example, certainly you don't need full xhtml to do the simple things you mention. Or maybe there is something else?

Also I have not used it but you probably know Bricolage and other CMS solutions, at any rate this seems like the kind of thing where either you use a very elegant solution, skip providing a solution, or end up making one and tweaking it forever. Anyway, a "listing" page doesn't need more than maybe boldface/italics and hrefs, no?