From tchrist@jhereg.perl.com

What is so bad in using 2? After all​:

Pod is supposed to be a clean easy way for mere mortals to write
documentation. The twin goals are easy of writing and easy of parsing.

Ease of writing. Why should I have to remember which shortcuts the various
translators are supposed to have, and which they don't?

That 1 works is great, but that doesn't make 2 wrong.

The issue is merely one of simplicity. As soon as you get
too into fancy mark-ups, you're moving away from the "p" in pod.

--tom