Of course the OP specified you could still use the current PM markup style where you preferred that, so you could still use <code> tags. Personally, I'd probably use a mix of the two systems in this case. <code> tags for long segments and indenting for short segments.

Personally, I would be in favor of a limited markdown implementation -- If there are any features that don't make sense in PM-land just disable them for PM purposes, e.g., the whole linking syntax seems completely redundant here, the PM linking sytle is much better for almost every application I can think of.

Actually, if we decide this is a good idea in theory, we should look at other wiki-markup languages to see if any would better fit into the existing PerlMonks style.

What I am *not* in favor of, though, is a whole on/off switch/preference mechanism that makes you think about which formatting style you want to use for a particular post. If it can't be made to work seemlessly (or nearly so) with the current system then it's more trouble than it's worth. I'm mean the whole point of the proposal is to *simplify* the creation of our posts, not to complicify them.