I see. This is beyond my capabilities so I hope someone can help you. But I wonder if maybe something might be gleaned from these posts:
CSS Snippet for multiple Blockquote styles with syntax formatting? - Help - Obsidian Forum
Better block references via quote block - Share & showcase - Obsidian Forum
…because I feel like a workaround would be to style your items with CSS instead of with # or >. But that is oftentimes very “busy” in terms of having to write a lot of extra formatting.
The first post mentions styling blockquotes simply by use of tags. I wonder if the idea could be adapted to list items.