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> 1. Why not use Markdown-compatible syntax?
There's already a pandoc conversion to Typst and the syntax is mostly similar. Various symbols that are in use in markdown is used by the Typst in some other places (e.g. # is used for designating code mode in content mode so you can use variables function in-text).
2. Why would we want to observe changes in real time? Do you want this when coding too?
If you've ever wanted to just use something that's more powerful than Markdown (and not use awkward HTML in between, let's face it MD was supposed to be minimal), you have to use LaTeX, but it gets painfully slow as the project gets big. Fast feedback loops are essential. Would you rather wait 5s seconds to see that you have made changes that destroyed your layout or in an instant with incremental compilation?
3. You can collaborate with Git (and on the Web App) because Typst is also a language and a compiler (see their GitHub page at https://github.com/typst/typst) like LaTeX.
You can have it function as well as Markdown with templates and just use the sugar syntax (plus custom functions ad hoc without having to wrangle with LaTeX's enigmatic errors [1] and confusing macros even for something trivial like fonts [2]).
[1]: remember \badness 10000?
As per https://github.com/qjcg/awesome-typst#graphics there is CeTZ. Of course it is not as full-fledged as TikZ, but it works pretty well.
There's also the fact that you can't auth using pub keys, and are consequently stuck using password auth (as a workaround, I usually just set the credential cache expiration to some huge value). Despite this, it's only half-annoying, but again, as you pointed out, only if one of your collaborators happens to have the premium version.
I really hope the typst webapp gets git support soon so it at least gets feature parity with Overleaf in this department (issue tracker: https://github.com/typst/webapp-issues/issues/25).