I might just be stupid but...

I don't understand why a code is used for certain characters in forums. Like the apostrophe.. Or the "greater than" arrow. When I go to edit my posts, I always have to replace the code with the original character, otherwise the original character doesn't perform its job. Greater than arrow is for a Blockquote. But after I edit a post, the Blockquote disappears and I'm left with pointy indentation marks. It's quite tedious to go in and replace "& gt;" with ">" every time I edit. Why does it work like this? Please fix.. "& #039;" - this code (without the space) is an apostrophe.. An apostrophe.. Come on now, you need an ampersand, pound sign, 3 numbers, AND semi-colon to represent a tiny line? Why?