FWIW internal links between equations and figures in LaTeX is pretty easy and should be supported by most readers. Poor mathematical writing is pretty rampant,

FWIW internal links between equations and figures in LaTeX is pretty easy and should be supported by most readers. Poor mathematical writing is pretty rampant, but that's partly due to the fact that it's not taught well and there's definitely some cultural biases towards jargon. I don't think that negates the fact that even within a typewritten document a human needs to read and understand what's going on, so often terseness is desired, as long as the reader understands the notation enabling it.