Indeed, Wikipedia does not have a standard form of referencing.  But it does have a usual form, and this article doesn't use it.  To my eyes, this makes it look odd.  It reads like an academic paper, which may be useful in more academic WP articles, but I don't see the point in a relatively mainstream article like this, it just breaks things up unnecessarily. Yes, citations are important in any Wikipedia article, but they have more or less importance depending on the context - here I would say they are not of high importance and are given undue prominence.  Just my opinion though - there'd need to be a fairly strong consensus of agreement with me to justify going through and changing it.  Chat