Jens Ropers (ropers@ropersonline.com) [041214 12:17]:
You're aware that we do have footnote syntax, right? Admittedly somewhat unwieldy (and a new syntax has been proposed), but it's there anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes#Example_2
Those are called HTML anchors ;-)
A less unwieldy footnote syntax (e.g. not needing to be renumbered by hand every time the article sections are shuffled) would, I assume, require some intelligence from MediaWiki in processing it into a nice-looking article.
- d.