Re: footnote & image centering within @multitable

[Karl Berry]

    The @vskip below the image doesn't have any effect.

Indeed.  I realized that both you and I had the same intuitive idea,
that somehow the typesetting of the block text in one column would be
known in the image column.  This is wrong.  TeX typesets them completely
independently, it doesn't have any knowledge of the text column when
doing the image column and vice versa (except for their respective
widths, which is no help to us).

So, in order to do this, we have to typeset the text ourselves, figure
out how tall it is, and then use that height when typesetting the image,
so TeX knows what height to vertically center in.  (Possibly \valign
could be used here, but I don't see it.)

Here's one way to do that (the \newbox thing is only needed once,
everything else is per-image):

@tex
\newbox\colbox
@end tex

@macro coltext
The words emotion, spirit, and feeling are used to mean a
variety of different things in different contexts.  The definitions used
here are as follows:
@end macro

@multitable @columnfractions .55 .45

@item 
@tex
\global\setbox\colbox=\vbox{\coltext}%
@end tex
@coltext
@tab
@tex
\leftskip=0pt
\dimen0=\ht\colbox  \advance\dimen0 by \dp\colbox
\vtop to \dimen0{\vskip-\baselineskip \vss @image{feelings,,,Feelings}\vss}\par
@end tex
@ifnottex
@image{feelings,,,Feelings}
@end ifnottex
@end multitable

Another alternative (which I personally would recommend) is not to use
@multitable at all.  See my answer to your question on bug-texinfo.