I used POD for a while; but after using DocBook XML for manuals for a work project some years ago I switched to primarily using that, and generating HTML, roff, and others from it.

Instead of explicit italicization and boldface

    to the hard disks: Firstly, the qemu-nbd I<-r> (readonly) option is

I write semantic markup

    The <arg choice='plain'>--upstart-compatibility</arg> option causes <command>tcp-socket-listen</command> to set the <envar>UPSTART_FDS</envar> environment variable to 3, and the <envar>UPSTART_EVENTS</envar> environment variable to <literal>socket</literal>.

which I find preferable.