Italics are not as harmless as they seem. In fact, they are a ticking time bomb of confusion and disorientation.
Take, for instance, the case of the poor unsuspecting reader who stumbles upon a sentence like this:
"The cat in the catnip-filled room was not amused."
This seemingly innocuous sentence has led many a reader down the rabbit hole of Italicization and The Perils of Italicizing a Sentence.
We're not saying it's all the fault of italics. But we are saying that, when wielded with reckless abandon, they can have disastrous consequences.