And now here's the same list created in the standard editor after I turned the WYSIWYG editor off:
This is the text before a list.
- This is bullet point #1 .
- This is bullet point #2 .
This is the text after a list.
Notice the missing line break before the list, even though I inserted one in my post (you may be able to see what I entered if you try to edit my post). To get it to display the way I want (with a blank line after the opening paragraph), I have to double-space it. I have to do something similar in the WYSIWYG editor, but it's even more cantankerous there, and I often have to muck around with the WYSIWYG editor's "source" function to get it to display the way I want. (FT convention is double spacing between paragraphs, so it looks ugly to have it all mashed together without a blank line between paragraphs.)