I agree. Inline discussion is stabilising around the ![](){} vs @[](){} but there is still some debate around block syntax. There should be a separate discussion on block syntax.
http://talk.commonmark.org/t/block-directives/802
nexussays: It’s a directive, not a function. It only specifies intent of users, not how it looks at the output. So the question about HTML element output in this context makes no sense, because it ignores other context like pdf or latex.