Bastien, thanks for the response and the explanation. Looks like getting org-mode recognize the ">" prefix as a demarcator of a code block isn't the right approach then. 

What about John Hendy's suggestion of finding a face I like, and then adding "^> text..." to the list of things org fontifies with that style? ('In other words, add "^> text" regexp to the existing hunt for lines that start with #+ in order to get src code fontification applied.') 

Is this feasible? If so, how would I go about doing this? Sorry for the newbie question. I'm looking in org-faces, and I don't see anywhere where I can specify the prefix characters org looks for... 



John Hendy wrote: 
> The easiet would be to find a face you like and just add "^>
text..." to the existing list of things org already fontifies with
that style. In other words, add "^> text" regexp to the existing hunt
for lines that start with #+ in order to get src code fontification
applied.




On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Bastien <bzg@altern.org> wrote:
Hi Peter,

Peter Salazar <cycleofsong@gmail.com> writes:

> Now the question is: How do I make org-mode recognize the ">" prefix
> as a demarcator of a code block, so that my document remains readable
> as Markdown?

You can't -- using ":" as the prefix for fixed-width regions is
hardcoded.  If we allow to customize this, it will lower the
"exchangeability" of .org files between users (this exchangeability
is already quite low due to the many options user have.)

Best,

--
 Bastien