> This makes it annoying to cut/paste code in and out of the markup text.
Well, not that annoying because you're inside Emacs and operating on rectangles of text is a doddle. But the preferred syntax is to enclose the source code in #+BEGIN_SRC/#+END_SRC blocks anyway.
Using this method also enables neat features, such as activating the appropriate major mode for each block of text and doing literate programming.
> Please do note that this is not about Emacs. This is about Org-mode syntax and its advantages even when used outside of Emacs.
Sorry, but a "reasonable" markup language in my book would be one I would be comfortably using anywhere, meaning typing in manually (which I do a lot with markdown). #+BEGIN_SRC/#+END_SRC is too verbose and ':' as a line prefix impractical.
This won't see any wide-spread adoption outside of the Emacs world, markdown's adoption is widespread and is here to stay I'm afraid, even though it has tons of pitfalls and different styles. For pretty much everything, it's "good enough", and some things make a lot more sense if you're actually typing the text.
Well, not that annoying because you're inside Emacs and operating on rectangles of text is a doddle. But the preferred syntax is to enclose the source code in #+BEGIN_SRC/#+END_SRC blocks anyway.
Using this method also enables neat features, such as activating the appropriate major mode for each block of text and doing literate programming.