That wasn't my point. I'm rather more obsessed
with the practical issue of building the encyclopedia than with the theoretical one of
verifiability in principle. Relevant quotes add to articles; obviously not just for the
sake of it.
Quotes in the article where appropriate are fine - I thought you meant
in the footnotes (you mentioned "more verbatim footnotes".
If you're writing an article on a mathematical theorem, for example,
quoting from the paper that first discussed it (ie. the main primary
source) would probably add to the article. I'm not sure quoting
secondary sources would be useful very often, though.