Using \startchapter\stopchapter or \startitem\stopitem could present some logical advantage over the use of \chapter or \item, for example. However, it would be useful to have some sort of sanity check giving warnings at least if the \start\stop symmetry is violated. As a minimal example, the following simple case of one logical error leads to an undesired result. Of course, you get what you asked, but some sort of warning could be useful. Or, rather, is the general philosophy to silently pass over such errors so as not to load down the log in the face of such user errors? Indeed, under ConTeXt, unknown or incorrect arguments are simply ignored. (in other cases, for example forgetting \stoptext, ConTeXt protests vocally) Alan \starttext \startitemize [n] \startitem first \startitem \startitem second \stopitem \stopitemize \stoptext