Apart from the learning curve org-roam is the answer.
I’m on week 2 with it and I can hardly sleep I’m so excited by how it’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.
I love this, and used Deft and org-mode for a long while, but formatting and inline images aren't something that's non-hackily possible to do in Emacs. Would love to be wrong about this.
Yep, I did use inline images in my days with org-mode, but I found it to be rather hacky. It's possible, I just found it unpleasant.
May I suggest contacting the emacs org-mode maintainers and chat. The emacs guys are very receptive I know, I imagine the org-mode guys will be just as good.
Resizing image is a pain, and inserting quick screenshots takes some hacking around.