Hi Tim,
The proposal is that a new reference is added the same way as now, but replaced at save-time with a number. All references are re-numbered at save-time so they start at 1 and don't skip numbers.
Ok that's the bit I hadn't picked up on - automatic re-numbering. A curious idea, combining static and dynamic numbering.
Currently, if you want to re-insert a second link to an existing reference, you have to hunt down its name (or worse, first assign one yourself, for which you would potentially have to know the other names in use so yours doesn't clash with them). Ideally you should only need to look at the (rendered) References section to get the number, and then type something like [1] to insert it.
Your ideas have merit.
I find your statement "anything that involves typing in numbers manually sounds like a terrible idea" amazing -- does that mean you find "<ref name='blah'/>" easier to type than "[1]"?
I was stuck on the idea of dynamic numbering. Inserting a new footnote 2 and having to manually renumber the others...you know...
As explained above, you never need to /add/ a reference to the references section (unless you want to add one without a link inline in the text; which, by the way, the current system doesn't allow, which makes for extremely ugly formatting in many References sections). However, one should be able to /edit/ the references in the References section, because that's where they are.
Sounds pretty good.
Steve