User blog comment:Dopp/Technical Update: March 29, 2011/@comment-3030984-20110329210422/@comment-1656630-20110329214809

@Monchoman MediaWiki:Newpagelayout is different from LayoutBuilder, and works in wikitext.

We do hear the "give us wiki text on layoutbuilder" argument loud and clear, and will assess for the next round of product development on that extension. (The counter position is that having a tightly controlled layout system gives you a lot more power across many pages at once.)