Apart from the p tag, that gets annoying when you have long stretches of prose, I find plain html5 much less annoying than markdown. Moreover, tables and hyperlinks are clearer and easier to type in html5 than in any markdown flavor.
<table>
<tr>
<td>first row, first column
<td>first row, second column
<td>first row, third column
<tr>
<td>second row, first column
<td>second row, second column
<td>second row, third column
</table>
| first row, first column | first row, second column | first row, third column |
| ------------------------ | ------------------------- | ------------------------ |
| second row, first column | second row, second column | second row, third column |
| first row, first column | first row, second column | first row, third column |
| ------------------------ | ------------------------- | ------------------------ |
| second row, first column | exceptionally long second row, that makes second column look worse | second row, third column |