Markdown is really just a way of making the average, text, bit of HTML a little bit easier to read and write. Even when you're including some HTML in it, it still has that advantage over raw HTML.

<p>because, it is <i>really</i> awkward</p>

All the hoops you have to jump through with Markdown seem more awkward to me than a few extra characters.

but you jump through those hoops during setup, vs seven extra characters every paragraph

But then you just end up writing HTML anyways.

the output is html, but when you're writing markdown thought flows to output more seamlessly, with fewer characters vs with having to close italics with the more awkward </i>. yeah in the end that goes through a tool and it outputs html, but it's about when I'm trying to get the ideas out of my head and onto the page.