Thanks—though most of those weren’t shared until I encouraged folks to do so… 
Again, don’t take challenge as disagreement. I am excited by the idea of block referencing, too, but I’m self-critical. I used it while I was experimenting with Roam Research, but I’m not sure it actually led to an improvement in thinking (the only thing that actually matters in these systems). By challenging the community to reify and scrutinize the utility of block referencing, I’m hoping to draw out the nuances of the feature, so that we may think of approaches to implementation.
Yes, the Internet example is a bit of a red herring. My point was that block referencing hasn’t been implemented in the Internet proper (nor in many of the celebrated examples that people point to as successes of knowledge management, like Andy Matuschak’s notes or Wikipedia itself). There’s likely a reason for that; I wonder why?
As far as I can see, there can only be two reasons:
- Implementation is more difficult than it’s worth; or
- Block referencing actually isn’t as useful as many think it will be.
So, I appreciate the examples shared in this thread, but I still think the reason block referencing isn’t a standard in information management is #2 above. I have been extremely open to understanding how it would improve note-taking. Sincerely, I want that light-bulb moment! Alas, none of the discussions I’ve seen have led to one.
All that said, I have actually come up with a way of implementing block referencing in Obsidian without compromising the fundamental principles of the app.