This is kind-of not Spiral-bent, but HTML on this forum kind of sucks.
Typing the tags is annoying if you have a big post to edit. You would be able to highlight a word, then click a button where it automatically wraps the tags around it. There should also be a button for making hyperlinks.
Failing the implementation of format buttons, would it be that difficult to replace < em > and < strong > with < i > and < b> ? I understand why the current terms are used in web design absolutely, but there's no good goddamn reason to use these clunky-ass tags in this context.
Personally, I'm already used to the normal HTML code tags from a variety of other sites I make use of HTML on. Learning another set of codes that does the exact same just means more to memorize and mix up overall, especially when BBCcode uses almost those exact things, only with "[]" instead of "<>".
i blame drupal