I got the following idea regarding the use of markup characters in org-mode. Currently it is possible to use *bold*, /italic/ and ~verbose~ and a few other markups. I would have liked to have this extended as follows:

• Allow the toggling of the display of the "formatting" characters, *, ~, /, etc.
• Allow a system that allows the user to invent his own formatting. E.g. «variable», 〈function〉, $math$, ⌞string⌟, or whatever the user fancies. All these modes should be defined in an org-mode variable and the display attributes should be configurable, just like any other custom org-mode font. If the user wants to expand beyond ASCII it should be up to him.
• Alternately, use a system like "<var>variable</var>" where the tag var is user definable, just like the magic characters above. The display of the tags should be toggable. Just like for [file:foo.bar] where the [] character are hidden, should the tags be hidden until someone erases one of the two delimiters.

Note that this is nothing more than ideas at the moment, and I'll probably never get around to implement any of it. Still I thought I'd share it if someone would like to have a go.

Regards,
Dov