Created attachment 13149
Screenshot of expanded state

Attached:

What you describe is because it doesn't use a <a>. This was stated quite plainly in the commit message; I don't know which is better practice in general terms, but while either approach can be problematic, the lack of a <a> in the editpage footer is consistent with the common (cross-skin) practice of using events without an <a> for such collapsible elements. Thus that the footer would do so as well stands to reason, as unlike the Vector-only sidebar style, this was a cross-skin change.

The use of <a>s or <a>-like behaviour can be quite useful from a UX perspective, however, so you can feel free to add that yourself, but do be sure to make it work with all skins, not just Vector.

I believe that this change in behavior is an enhancement, not a regression. More than two weeks have gone by and I haven't heard a single complaint, even from usually militant en.wp people.

I suggest WONTFIX. Also changing priority to lowest and severity to trivial (somebody would have fixed it already if it was really major).

As the Target Milestone on this ticket has been set to 1.22.0:

According to http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2013-September/072030.html "MediaWiki 1.22 is slated for release on November 30th, at the very latest."

If this is still intended to get fixed for 1.22.0, a patch is needed soon.

WONTFIX-ing, as I suggested a month ago. There were no comments since then,
so I assume nobody opposes it.

@Isarra: Well, I personally don't agree. But I can see how that might make sense. However that doesn't answer the main concern I raised: It's inconsistent.

It was randomly changed in 1 very specific component. Especially from a design perspective we should strive for consistency. And considering this is all part of Vector, that should be easy, it's not in a different project.

If you propose changes like that, please do them in a separate change and apply them consistently at once, or not at all. I assume the rationale applies to the sidebar just as well?

So both should be using <a> and styled as dark grey text color. Or both should not use <a> and naturally styled grey text color. Either way, unless you have a reason for why the sidebar should be different, please restore the style as it was in the collapsible footer, or update the other areas of Vector as well.