Neither do I intend to promote another app in this forum, nor I want to draw a conflict. I simply want to point some established cases to improve block reference usage within Obsidian’s markdown structure.
Here is one app that I found out not long ago - SiYuan Note Taking - and this is the official web: SiYuan - Local-first personal knowledge management system that supports Markdown typesetting, block-level reference and two-way linking
Basically, it has done two things extraordinary (in my opinion): first, it already integrated the WYSIWYG (Typora-like) system. Users don’t have to switch between editing and preview so often that their thought process is interrupted. Although the UI design of SiYuan is 10 times worse than Obsidian (not to mention the intentional copy), I found myself thinking much faster and flowy with the Typora-like support.
Secondly, SiYuan integrates the Block Reference in a way extremely similar to what you see in an outliner app (but within a markdown system). It auto-generates ID and very easy to identify which “block” you are referencing due to its blend of block-ish structure with Markdown.
Thx dev team for the mobile shipping. Because of that, Obsidian is becoming one of my go-to note-taking systems. The two things that prevent me from using Obsidian for everything are 1) the lack of WYSIWYG integration and 2) semi-completed block reference. I hope this sample case can provide some ideas upon which Obsidian can improve in the future!