I would argue that it’s the lack of design, that makes this happen in markdown. But I see it’s an issue with the Markdown Library and not with Kirby.
BTW playin around with PHP Markdown Dingus
- list 1
- list 1
* list 2
* list 2
generates
<ul>
<li>list 1</li>
<li><p>list 1</p></li>
<li><p>list 2</p></li>
<li>list 2</li>
</ul>
I’m happy to hear the design reason in the second <p>