I totally agree with you that hidden backlinks are not satisfying. Furthermore i assume that the backlinks in the information popup won’t show the context where the backlinbk appears (a snippet of surrounding text). That context gives the real value for working with backlinks.
I see two possibilities: either to put the backlinks at the end of the note OR to allow an integrated sidebar to the right of the editor where all the stuff from information panel appears (maybe in more feature rich way, in this case: with preview of context). I will later write a feature request for the right sidebar that considers that bear should never show more than three panes.
Edit, here it is:
quick writing for request for right sidebar