I can see not finding the markup appealing, but that is why you would export for viewing? And, outside of moving some of that to a binary format, I don't know how you could get this level of stuff in band? I suppose you could strictly hide it in view? Would probably still want the markup in data.
None of which is answering what makes it non ergonomic? Basic text with an actual table format is about what I'd hope for it to be. What is off?
Links are different. Everyone seems to redo that idea. Rst files, I still always get wrong on first tries.
It's great for what it is, but what it is doesn't 1-to-1 map to much else.
For a lot of us, that focus on the plain text is important. As it helps keep us focused on all of the other affordances that we have grown accustomed to in emacs. As soon as you move things into a binary format, you are likely giving up on a lot of the other tools you have. There can be reasons to do this, of course, but for most data that you interact with at a personal level, most of those reasons have been overcome by the power of the personal computer.