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To alleviate some of this, we should allow the inclusion of offsite images. This is perfectley acceptable.

No, that's not acceptable at all. If you want something to appear inline, mixed into the page in Wikipedia, it should be *part* of Wikipedia. That means it should be hosted on the Wikipedia server, and be easily packaged with backups, distributions, and alternative published formats.

If you'd like to *link* to external images, just like any other external resource, that's A-OK, fine and dandy.

<img src> *is* simply linking the images, and you get the benefit of inlining any image on the internet seen fit without having to go through the process of fumbling around for days and weeks about copyrights which is too slow, non reliable, and rigorous compared with the option being argued for.

The above arguments lack any support besides opinion and reptition ("No...it should"), then counterpoints with more explatives, obnoxious posture, and more opinion.

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