I have the same problem and I dont know why this has been an issue for so long.
Its clearly a issue yet no on will admit it.
I switched back to the visual as it was easier to replace / edit an image reference however upon saving WordPress nicely trashed my formating.
Removing all paragraphs and leaving me with one block of up-paragraphed text despite what the Visual editor shows its clearly not a case of what you see is what you get!
WordPress guys you need to fix this and keep propper HTML standards in the mean time I need a way to disable this “Feature” as going forwards I might not be the only one editing our site.
