From a very intuitive (i.e., unformal) point of view, it is a very compact way to describe an resource together with outgoing links: think of a graph representation. I agree with you that this offers an embarrassing alias for the operation of creating link, clearly more convenient than the "official" way. I decided to use this alternative exactly for that reason: it is very attractive, so probably the most frequently used. But I found the same point you did: once created, I have no reference for the link.
So here is the question: is the "in line" creation of a link (as in the http rendering paper, sect. 3.4.5) conceptually acceptable (and why, we may have overlooked some relevant detail), or not?