NOTE: This was moved from a question specifically about the code section.
TL;DR: I think there is more wrong with that section than just the code sample. I suggest breaking it out into two sections and expanding them: Code Block, Inline Code.
The code markdown section is easily the most important one on the page as nearly every question and answer contains code and many new users don't format it properly. Despite that, it's the smallest section with the least amount of info visible (without expanding). More space is given to Spoilers.
Add more info to the non-expanded (renamed) Code Block section and create a new non-expandable Inline Code section with the current Code Span content.
Also, I've used a simple and boring code sample for the code block. Almost every other example on that page is meta and gives more information about what is happening -- information that is useful. For the inline code sample, I used something other than keyboard keys, since there is a better way to do that already (<kbd>
).
Code Block (not expanded):
By mentioning prettifying, we give someone a compelling reason to want to format their code: it will look better! Also, by mentioning the keyboard shortcut we let them know it's not as tedious to get there as it might seem if they have more than just a few lines of code.

Code Block (expanded):

Inline Code:

I removed two lines from the existing Code Span section. Unless I'm misunderstanding this, I don't think this is true (anymore?). HTML doesn't need to be escaped:

And HTML works just fine (in that you can put it in there), so this is somewhat confusing (although I know what it means). It would be better to use the same language as the code block and say it will be ignored:
