If I was in charge (I am not), and if I were to go implement a different syntax, I wouldn't create a hybrid. I'd make a tickbox (not a drop down menu) were people can select (with a per user default) what markup they use. Perlmonks own HTML-bastard, real HTML, Markdown, some wiki dialect, POD, LaTeX, whatever. Make it a pluggable filter so it would be easy to later add other dialects.