Markdown on its own isn’t in the same league as latex and similar systems. Off the top of my head, markdown doesn’t support: Figures outside the flow of the document, references, layouts (columns, etc), comments, formulas, a standard and good looking pdf output, page breaks, custom layouts for authors / abstract / etc, numbered chapters, autogenerated table of contents, custom blocks with different formatting, footnotes, appendixes and a whole lot more.
There are various “batteries included” markdown renderers - maybe like quarto - which add mermaid for diagrams and a few other features. But I’ve never seen a paper written in markdown with the same polish as what latex produces. It just doesn’t have the depth of features that you need for making a professional looking paper. Latex ships with all of that out of the box.
If their target market is people writing scientific papers, it makes sense that markdown isn’t in the list. Markdown isn’t a serious competitor.
There are various “batteries included” markdown renderers - maybe like quarto - which add mermaid for diagrams and a few other features. But I’ve never seen a paper written in markdown with the same polish as what latex produces. It just doesn’t have the depth of features that you need for making a professional looking paper. Latex ships with all of that out of the box.
If their target market is people writing scientific papers, it makes sense that markdown isn’t in the list. Markdown isn’t a serious competitor.