On SO and pretty much any other SE site, linked code is clearly distinguishable from non-linked code:

But on programmers (and meta.programmers), the two are completely undistinguishable:

You have to hover over the link to find out it's actually a link, but there's nothing suggesting that.

I think that the two cases should look obviously differently, probably by making the linked code blue, just like on SO.

Live sample:

text text Code text Linked code text