Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always felt that the number of #s should increase with higher-level rather than with lower-level headings, for multiple reasons: - More #s mean a larger visual footprint, which would be more appropriate for higher-level headings (cf. larger font size in rich-text rendering, and of course the = and - underlines). This is what bothers me the most. - I tend to write documents bottom-up, starting with lowest-level head…
I like this idea, but that means you need to be able to decide what the "lowest" level is at the beginning (i.e. I seldom use anything below .)
Well, nothing keeps you from still starting with ###, so you have two spare levels to go down to if needed (## and #).
Alternatively, that’s where the “negative” levels would come in (i.e. the .# levels above).