To be honest, why bother?

Just store in the database without all the markup (lets face it, it save space)
and then make your
elements, etc before outputting to the page.
You also wont have to bother converting to/from textarea elements.

This in my opinion is the most logical way.

__________________
Rob - SEO Specialist
Owner & Founder of Webforumz.com

I am currently unavailable for private work