The paste a 'windows shortcut' is NOT a decent work around because you can't embed the link into your work. The old link in my Evernote documents: 'file:///..." still work so it doesn't seem like it's a priority to the Evernote development team.
Here's why it's important:
1. I can't put everything into Evernote. I have Terabytes of data on my NAS drives, (4TB, 8TB and soon to add 24TB).
2. Adding a link to an external file is so much better than having an Evernote note in many areas. ex:
a. Note links to video tutorials which, of course can't be embedded into a note.
b. Note links to office documents, spreadsheets, presentations, richly formatted 'word' documents, etc.
c. Note links to non-Evernote highly sensitive or even just private documents means that information is not going to be stored on Evernote servers.
d. Local links are almost useless to any hacker and especially so for removable drives. So you can have an Evernote link to a file on a removable drive and don't have to worry about accidently sharing personal data.
3. Links to external files that open up other apps, expands Evernote so that it remains our go-to app for everything. Right now I have to do a good portion of my work in X-Mind, simply because of it's fantastic versatility. Having Evernote work with X-Mind would be great. X-Mind just makes more sense for even MINOR complex projects than Evernote. Once a project gets past a page in Evernote, it's just not visually viable anymore, especially if it has sub-projects. Evernote outlines only take you so far but would be useful when used in conjunction with X-Mind. My wife has completely abandoned Evernote, (no longer a premium member), and does everything on X-Mind.