I definitely think static sites are a great alternative to WP, and I love Markdown. But you're right: trying to get non-developer users to write markdown was a struggle, they thought it was some new special language we were forcing down their throat.
I work for https://forestry.io/ and we created a CMS for static sites that lets users write markdown with a WYSIWYG editor, and allows devs to build an interface for editing front matter.
I work for https://forestry.io/ and we created a CMS for static sites that lets users write markdown with a WYSIWYG editor, and allows devs to build an interface for editing front matter.