A great comment indeed. It sucks when the reply is a short comment. I hope mine doesn't suck.

Answer 1. No, the Cheetah bot detects content that is similar to the content that is available on the internet. Copy pasting others' work is a problem (plagiarism). Your own work will not be flagged.

Answer 2. There are three editing options on Steemit. I use visual or markdown editor mostly and html at times.

*Italic*
Italic

**Bold**
Bold

I hope your problem is solved by the link above.