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not sure if ecco is or isn't the right tool for what you want, and curious what others opinion might be.
 
 
but can say that Ecco is *incredibly* stable and safe for data.  With its built in data recovery, Ecco is by far the most stable program of this type that have personally worked with.
 
 
Best advice to offer up front is that unless you plan on having > 60,000 'notecards',  recommend keeping all you data in single ecco file.   With only 10 primary sources,  sounds like you will end up liking this best.    (There is a 50 Meg,  20,000 post 'archive' .eco which is a living example-- you can have HUGE and stable ecco...  it goes together  
 
The advantage of an 'all in one' structure,  is that as you build your text,  (assuming text assigned to a folder per source),  you still keep all of the source data together in it's own outline [although it loses its order].
 
If you have text, or pdf original... or if you scan and ocr your reference sources,  it is easy to directly and effortless 'shoot' into ecco (directly into that 'sources' folder) any 'highlighted' material you want.  
 
 
I use ecco extensively just exactly this way.  Each sentence (or part of sentence) is it's own item,  with a pulldown folder citing the source. [can use multi-pulldowns if > 250 prim sources].  A text folder denotes the starting/ending page for reference.
 
 
What ecco does that have found no substitute for yet, is allow instant and easy  arranging of all the fragments into an outline of ideas..  [you can also assign to categories to view same info in different contexts]
 
 
[You can with HUGE works,  have a file for each reference set.  One trick is then to COPY each file, and bring them into ecco at the same time.  You can then CUT from each reference file, and PASTE into your 'master' file-- and all text formatting and folder references get copied as well.  But it is destructive..  you have to CUT from the reference file...  hence the reason to use a copy if it.]
 
 
Another helpful 'trick' is to assign *ALL* items to phonebook.  Allows you get a de-contexted list which you can filter based on source, subject (if you just subject folder), etc.   Once you build your outline, you lose the 'linear' view unless you also do this..
 
This will result for you, in the end, in:
 
1. An outline of your text with each paragraph or line (and a sentence can be made up of several lines) containing a reference to source and page number. (and comments if you wish, etc.)(and subject keys, if you wish)(and relevence level, so that you can filter up and down globally to include more or less levels of detail in your work as a whole-- it's kind of cool).
 
2. Outlines for each reference showing (in context) what was used from that reference in the global work, and where.
 
3. (if you use the phonebook assignment trick),  based on your filtering per reference (or reference group), a linear listing of all material referenced from any source, including (if made, subject key references).
 
 
 
 
(There is an add-on tool set to be released (sometime in far future .. (?)) that assembles the outline into Word including automatic creation of a footnote reference (with page number) for each source.  Because there are so many programs now that do this better and automatically,  it is unclear if the tool will actually ever see daylight...    If there is ever strong demand for it, more likely to happen.)