I hope the following:

"The beta is very useful with a hardware keyboard of some kind, but is limited with the onscreen keyboard, as there is no accessory view to simplify typing *, [, etc. Using the onscreen keyboard is possible, but tedious."

is not the final word for MMC iOS version. Have an onscreen keyboard for such things as mentioned above or fo things, such as lists etc are very helpful, even with an external keyboard. Something along of 1Writer (if not the extent that Drafts 5 goes in terms options and configuration)