I went with `- (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForFooterInSection:(NSInteger)section` to be consistent with the approach in `WPTableViewController`. IIRC the empty view was to have the right background color in the footer. 
Yah, for clarity I should have created a new constant for the bottom margin vs recycling the one for the top margin. 

Let's just use a table footer like you said.  Its one line vs. however many it takes for the delegate methods.