Something tells me you felt clever posting this. If you're open to a different perspective:
The underscore makes your text worse to read, IMO. Same with the MD anchor syntax.
HN supports italicizing by wrapping an expression with asterisks *. Why insist on a foreign standard?
HN commenters use the [{i}] notation all the time for footnote referencing. Which can be used for links, declutttering the main text.
Why add a ^?
