I think it figured it out.   It seems the IDE has problems with nested elements when they are next to each other.  For example, if I have 
 	
	
 
<ul><li><strong>|</li></ul>
 
 | 	
 
The IDE doesnt autoclose the <strong>, I guess, because it is inbetween/next to the closing </li>.  It's doing the same thing for the <em> element.  Actually, now that I look closer, it wont autoclose any elements that are embedded inside another if they are currently touching.  So if you begin a <ul> and the IDE autocloses it, and then immediately begin a <li> it wont autoclose the <li>.
I would say this is definitely a bug.