I think the Table of Contents feature will be very helpful, and will become more so as articles grow in length. I commend the developers. It makes the wikipedia look more professional and authoritative, and will help immensely with the writing of organized articles. It will also encourage the proper use of headings. Text before the TOC is also a in general good thing, but that probably should be user configurable. The introduction of anchors also helps.
A simple <notoc> tag to allow authors to have articles avoid displaying the table (for whatever reason, like the Main Page, or others) should suffice. Similarly, a preference for logged in users would take care of the rest who really hate it. Since it is a good idea, requiring a positive affirmation of a toc, that is a <toc> tag for every article, will require significant editing and touching of 130000+ entries that would be better spent on content.
== Comments on features ==
=== Numbering === The numbering is awkward since the headings aren't numbered, maybe the TOC should be bulleted, or maybe headings should be numbered, I prefer bulleting the TOC to numbering the headings.
=== Size of text box === The area taken by the shaded box probably ought to extend across the screen, rather than be in a fixed size box, see http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be for a really ugly outcome of the current implementation (especially when the screen is narrow), which I am sure can be fixed.
=== Repeat article title === The Table of contents probably should repeat the article title, e.g. "Table of contents - Philosophy"
=== List of tables === A list of tables and list of figures would also help.
== Signature == David Levinson dlevinson AT mn DOT rr DOT com