Okay, but markdown is data (perhaps not well structured, but data nonetheless) + formatting. If I'm editing and going into the files directly anyway why do I need to be able to do queries? I guess I'm asking what's the point? Can't I find the info I want just using find and grep on a bunch of markdown files? Maybe I don't even have to do that if I've organized my markdown files sufficiently well.

Let me be clear, I get that you don't have db operations with a bunch of markdown files with a directory structure, but on small scale data repositories do you really need that? For example, if I have a bunch of recipes in my "personal database of markdown files" I can quickly find the chili recipe I'm looking for by going to the directory "Soups & Salads > Chili > Slow Cooker Chili Recipe" or something along those lines. Or I could have grepped for "slow cooker chili". Either way I'm going to find that recipe with no extra tooling on my part.

Where do rec files features add value? Plus, if I use rec files now it seems I have to build my own formatting because I can't rely on markdown editors to build it automatically for me. Or is there a way to specify formatting for rec files?