You want to be the slickest eh? I hate to say it, but the rounded thing comes to mind
I'll stop at the risk of being stoned.
I'm not exactly sure how to convince you that simple formatting (in notes, descriptions, comments, etc.) would be a huge plus, but I'll try...
In my experience, very simple formatting (bold, underline, bullets, etc.) almost always improves usability because if people have space to write in, they inevitably try to organize their thoughts. If there are no standard tools, they do this with caps, dashes, stars, equals, etc..
i.e.
Benefits
=======
* Clear Communication
* Standardized
* Consistent
* Usable
This may look like a good way to organize text, the problem is... it's not consistent from user to user. And, no formatting lends itself to paragraphs of text that are more difficult to get through.
As far as dev time... Can't you simply modify the current WYSIWYG editor to only include a few tools, and drop it in these areas
Thanks for listening...
Thomas