I see the point related to Obsidian not being a full fledged rich text editing experience, but I do believe that when you remove the visual cues on where (some) of the formatting is, it would be nice to have some indicator somewhere besides the pure bold/italic text. Not quite sure why, and maybe that’s just me, but it feels like it should be there somehow.
If I get a better grip on how to Obsidian plugins, I might come back with some tips and pointers, but for now I think you’re about as knowledgable on this topic as me… 
Good luck with your endeavours.