Hi again,
I might mention that I love contentious tech debate, and this is blue-ribbon, but I have to work on my tech writing (first tech $ since 2002!)
Just to insert my ideas about the Javascript, or perhaps AJAX:
I believe in starting from basics, and adding "automation" only as necessary and purely optionally. I developed this idea in a previous life a decade before the Web was invented: I was customizing classic automobiles with modern performace add-ons, so of which I was making myself.
I believed that sophistications such as automation should always assist but not replacements. In the case of Javascript, it is useful but should not replace the web basics. In other words Wikimedia should work in the most basic incarnation of the Web (well, not the MOST basic, but you get the idea), and Javascript should be implemented with optionally removeable modularity.
I can simply make that statement without further thought because of duality in technology; what works for one technology will work for all technologies simply because technology is, in effect, humanity. Humanity is built on the Information Society -- which is what we here think of as technology. Not only the Information Society, but also its woes, goes back to the early empires such as the Egyptian, if you read Lewis Mumford.
But now that I think about it, benefits comes forth: Mediawiki NEEDS to support dial-up access, as most of the Information Society -- humanity that is -- lacks high bandwidth; the average world bandwidth may be only in the 20s.
Using Google's Gmail as an example, it's AJAX works on dial-up, better than its pure HTML version, but only if you have the Javascript that makes it special pre-loaded. I personally start my browser when I have Wifi, keep it loaded using hibernation; but this is a "hack" and not a solution.
I think the solution is to build from basics from the ground-up, and then add "sophistication" optionally as it provides benefits, and allow an easy "back out" for each added "sophistication" as those add-ons become more of a burden than a benefit.
Mediawiki does support low bandwidth, and I believe it benefits in this way from being an early more simplistic implementation of the web, rather than being a newish AJAX monster such as Gmail.
As I mentioned, I am using the Mediawiki for collaborative tech writing, and so happens some of my co-writers are in the Himalayas, where I imagine bandwidth can be narrow indeed.
But getting back to the [Edit] tag issue, I will be happy with a temporary hack, so I can get this tech writing done, get paid, and use my writing as an example for other, hopefully more fulfilling jobs, such continuing my decades old project of providing all humanity with un-repressed access and computational abilities: http://Thinman.com