Hi Tom,

> The answer is that  can only occur inside paragraphs. The issues
> here are exactly the same as the issues for inline footnotes. Org gives
> us a bit more power, but not the full power because Org is Org, not
> Latex. Making  available outside of a paragraph would be a massive
> breaking change.
>
> In Timothy’s original example he is narrowly skirting the syntax to
> allow that all to remain a single paragraph, but stick in a newline
> anywhere and boom, no more paragraph, no more equation.

I don’t understand what you’re talking about here. You can already use `\[ ... \]'
outside a paragraph, e.g.

┌────
│ blah blah blah
│ 
│ \[
│   not part of a paragraph
│ \]
│ 
│ blah blah blah
└────

I also don’t see how footnotes are analogous, as footnotes are placed in the
middle of a line of text.

If you could explain your thoughts here a bit more, that would be appreciated.

> I guess one thing I’m missing/not understanding is when/why people
> want to use  instead of full #+begin_export latex block?

org-latex-preview :)

All the best,
Timothy