The issue is that, even if power users don't use the new interface they
still need to be able to use the old one to edit the same articles. If the
wikitext created by the visual editor is unnecessarily complicated and
unreadable (like the html produced by ms frontpage, for instance) then
there is problem. Similarly, the visual editor needs to be able to parse
even quite strangely written wikitext.
^^ This, 100 times over :)
Writing a visual editor is painfully hard. I've just finished one for a
current project after we evaluated what felt like a billion pre-existing
alternatives. Without fail they all suffered in that their output left a *
lot* to be desired.
The key thing to remember is that the output should be indistinguishable
from what a power editor would have written.
And cover all the edge cases (because with millions of articles we have
lots of those).
However; this looks an interesting start. I like the simplicity.
Tom