I understand where you’re coming from, and I’m not saying that that wouldn’t be ideal, but making a markdown-driven discussions engine also a perfect HTML rendering engine is not a simple proposition, even if individual cases seem superficially simple (i.e. just add a new line).
The ability to render the full HTML of a blog post in Discourse is a nice feature, but at the end of the day it’s one feature in a system that’s focused on markdown-formatted discussions.
If you follow the discussion I linked, including David’s recent post, you’ll see there are some possible avenues we could take here. One may pan out, and it will address this particular case. If there were an easier solution, I’d definitely be making a PR to Discourse address it.
Do let me know if you have issues with disabling image downloads, and I’ll work with you to address that too. I’ll let you know if we find a feasible path forward on the technical front.