There should be a perception of the same width between the last letter of an italic word and the first letter of the following roman word as between any two roman or two italic words. But just watch this: level level level level level.
You see that the italic letters are slanted to the right, so you perceive more space before the italic word and less after it. This defect could easily be removed since it's known where the roman-italic and italic-roman boundaries are.
