We need to find the right balance between making editing easy and making reading Wikipedia unobtrusive. Some work on this is being
done
in the Skin department, for example, where we will probably end up with a Skin preferred by editors, and one that is more friendly to non-editing users.
This would be a terrible violation of the basic Wiki-nature of
Wikipedia.
No it wouldn't. Anybody can use any skin they want! The idea is only to give people tools optimized for use. Readers and casual editors don't want confusing and redundant links. Long time editors don't mind trading increased learning curve for more functionality, and the potential to do what they want with one or two less clicks.
Making wikipedia easier to use for everybody isn't a terrible violation of basic wiki-nature, it's just being nice to users. And, that -- in my opinion -- is a just a good idea.
--Mark Christensen