*Hi Lancevortex, the policy is stated at International_phonetic_alphabet#Wikipedia_usage and SAMPA#Wikipedia_usage. Personally I like the policy because SAMPA is a total pain to read. Editing with the IPA is a lot easier if you do the editing in Microsoft Word vel sim. and then paste into Wikipedia. There's also WikiTeX if you know how to use it (I don't).   

 :: Readability is a matter of opinion, I guess. That said, I must confess I didn't realise that SAMPA was merely a hack; I suppose that's why I've never seen it anywhere but Wikipedia. Thanks for piquing my interest and making me actually find out about what I was arguing for. I'm converted  just wish I had an IPA keyboard.