They look the best as you said and they are also the ones that ∗didn't∗ mess with apparent line spacing.
Regarding messing with people, use the browser dev tools to replace them with the italics open and end tags, then screenshot the result and say to people, "what are you talking about? looks fine to me" and link said screenshot. I'm affraid our scheme will soon be thwarted by other HNers though who will jump in to say "yeah, I see asterisk as well" and then someone else will say "they are using a different unicode character".
They look the best as you said and they are also the ones that ∗didn't∗ mess with apparent line spacing.
Regarding messing with people, use the browser dev tools to replace them with the italics open and end tags, then screenshot the result and say to people, "what are you talking about? looks fine to me" and link said screenshot. I'm affraid our scheme will soon be thwarted by other HNers though who will jump in to say "yeah, I see asterisk as well" and then someone else will say "they are using a different unicode character".