Disable Text Changes (Bold, etc.)?

Question

Hello, all!
After downloading the latest Skype update (5.1), I have encountered an issue with asterisks (*) now turning text bold. Within my circle of contacts, we use asterisk brackets to denote rather specific things, and this change causes quite a bit of confusion and a general sense of clutter/reading difficulty in what we are trying to discuss.
Is there any way to disable this feature? I've also noticed there is no option to disable smileys; could the ability to change these things be added, at some point?
Such options would be much appreciated by myself, my colleagues, and surely by many others, as I know such images and font types are not appealing in many professional communities.
Thank you for your time!

Answer 1

I use Skype to communicate with a distributed team and removing astericks make the product unusable for this purpose.  It's one thing when *OMG* and *LOL* turns into OMG and LOL but an entirely different thing when a comment in a snippet of code goes from /* This is a comment */ to / This is a comment /.
Any programmer would see this feature as so morally repugnant that they would likely choose to chew off their own leg before implementing and even if forced to do so at gun-point would have found a way to sneak in a configuration option to disable the atrocity.
The fact that this made it into the software with no discernible way to disable it means that the UI design team has to be in full control.  Oh, I how I weep for you programmers!  Have you really fallen so low!  Another app where influence has moved from programmers, who, you know, were the creators of the internet to UI designers who seem to be working in such a rarified atmosphere that the oxygen deprivation is generating tunnel vision and a euphoria that is being confused with having achieved design nirvana.
While I'm at it.  Thanks for removing any ability that I can see to resize where you enter a message.  It is truly awesome when working with a few hundred square inches of screen real estate to have to hit a quarter inch high piece of  the screen to type a quick message.  I doubt a robot assisted lacroscopic surgeon could do that reliably 8 out of 10 times.  Nothing better than when you want to kick off a quick comment.  Click, dang! Click, dang!  Click, click, click, click #!@!%.
Oh!  And lets make it 'screen size agnostic' so that when you chose to resize the application to the appropriate size of an IM app we remove all indicators as to where, exactly, the boundaries are on that precious half a square inch of screen real estate.  Instead, lets put a faint 'Type a message here' in a beautiful pale blue in a sea of pale blues.  My guess is that particular shade of pale blue is supposed to naturally draw the hand towards the right place to click simply due to the stunning 'blueness' of the text.  
But, what if we resize the app and hand over several hundred square inches of screen real estate to the app?  What do we get for handing over a decadant amount of screen resolution?  A glourious pixel(!) wide blue boundary around our message box that is still a quarter in tall along with an arrow that allows you to 'send' the message in case you are suffering on a keyboard where some errant lint has disabled the return key.
Okay, I get it!  Everybody is designing now for the next generation that believes that the internet can only be accessed through a smart phone and is 'confused' by too many options.  But, you know, for the generation that actually pays for those smart phones and may have the money and buy multiple computing devices and the moral fortitude to make choices can you please make it possible for me to set my astericks and mesage boxes free?
Version 6.22.81.105