Bill Konrad wrote:
BTW, I agree that this proliferation of tags on the article page is not particularly helpful for readers.
Agreed, and I think this expresses very well the principle that should guide whether a given tag goes on the article itself or the talk page. If a tag is necessary or helpful for the reader, it should be placed on the article, but the number of such tags should be limited. A protection notice or dispute tag would qualify. VfD notices too, since they imply that the article may not belong at all. Virtually all of the rest are either primarily meta-information (which belongs on the talk page the way featured article tags are already done) or else they are poor attempts at categorization (which should be handled through, shockingly enough, categories).
--Michael Snow