As a reader, I prefer footnotes . . . but I remember what it was like in Ye Olden Tymes, when theses and seminar papers and the like had to be prepared on a typewriter, and how much backing and filling and calculation one had to do to get footnotes onto the same page as the text. I was deeply grateful that none of my professors insisted on footnotes, just so long as we didn't staple our pages together, and when I had to turn in my dissertation -- for which footnotes, not endnotes, were required -- I paid a professional to do the job.

(Well, to be truthful, my father paid for it, as my graduation present for getting my doctorate. But I accepted the gift with profound gratitude.)