ConTeXt and expert fonts

["Bruce D'Arcus" <darcusb@muohio.edu>]

OK, I've gone through all the manuals, and tried hard to figure this 
out, but obviously don't quite get the details of the font system in 
ConTeXt.

I want to set up a font (like Minion, or in this case Hoefler Text) for 
use in the following way:

For all tables    monospaced figures (osf or lining)
For all headings and page numbers   proportional lining
text  osf
footnote markers  superiors

SO my basic question is: how do I do this?  I have tried to set up a 
"SerifFootnote" fontsynonym (which is to access a specially-encoded 
"footnote" font), but no matter how I try to access it, I get an 
"unknown variant" error.

More generally, there's an interesting article on using so-called "rich 
font" (like Hoefler Text, but in the future, OpenType) with TeX, in 
which the author argues that TeX macros need to take the more complex 
capabilities of these fonts into account.  A relevant excerpt 
(http://www.math.tau.ac.il/~stoledo/Pubs/richfonts.ps):

"Macro packages, especially LATEX, should support
the features of rich fonts. In particular, I believe
that macro packages should automatically select
the correct numerals for most situations. The enhancement 
to LATEX that I envision would automatically
select fixed-width numerals in tables, and
would automatically select lining numerals when there
numerals are isolated (as in page numbers and the
table of contents) or when the numeral is likely to
be followed by a capital (as in section numbers).
There are also cases where the LATEX style can also
automatically select the best punctuation, especially
parentheses, brackets, and braces. Essentially, when
lining figures are enclosed alone in parentheses, the
parentheses should also be lining, as in reference
number in many bibTEX styles and in equation numbers."

Why not in ConTeXt then?  If one has a complete expert set of a font 
like Minion, shouldn't what I outlined above be the default behavior of 
a TeX macro system?  Once TeX supports OpenType this will become all 
the more relevant...

Bruce