Your solution for using unreliable Wikipedia is to cite it. My solution (and the way I was taught) is to simply _never use it_ for stuff which goes into the paper.
If I wanted to claim something ("widgets are quux"), I might certainly _start_ with Wikipedia, just to make sure that my understanding is correct and that I am not wasting my time, but if I want to use this in the paper, I will need to move to primary sources, read them and ensure that there is a good evidence that widgets are indeed quux.
So now that I spent all that time reading primary sources, I'd certainly cite them and not Wikipedia - after all, primary sources are better, and a single citation is enough. And in the case the Wikipedia author was wrong, I will avoid a mistake.
By extension, if I am citing Wikipedia, this means I have not found/read any better sources, and that just shows that I am lazy or maybe those widgets are not quux at all. Any advisor/reviewer would immediately point to this mistake - "Why are you citing Wikipedia here? Find a better source or remove the claim"
And that's how the rule is made - it's not "Don't cite Wikipedia [put ideas unattributed instead]", it is actually "Don't cite Wikipedia [find a better source and cit it instead]".
(Although I agree that some lazy people do former rather than latter)