Great points! In an ideal world, editors would note exactly where in the referenced work they found the information — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Ident... has some guidance on how to do that :)
Maybe, in an ideal world, I could imagine an editing experience with a split screen editor with the article text and the references open at the same time. Right now, it does feel like references are an afterthought in the editing workflow.