If you were doing ALL italic, I would suggest the Edit Spans and Divs plugin.
Don't believe the name.
it does many more tag types...ONE type at a time (It is Diaps toolbag in Sigil)
For the stop trying to do all in ONE PASS. All you do is give Murphy a leg up
(.*?) reduces the greedyness of th (.*)
<p><i>What!</i> will happen if this <i>code appears?</i></p>
