Is there a way to get LaTeX to place figures in the same page as a reference to that figure?

I don't want to sound too negative, but there are occasions when what you want is almost impossible without a lot of "artificial" tuning of page breaks.

If the callout falls naturally near the bottom of a page, and the figure falls on the following page, moving the figure back one page will probably displace the callout forward.

I would recommend (as far as possible, and depending on the exact size of the figures):

• Place the figures with [t] (or [h] if you must)
• Place the figures as near as possible to the "right" place (differs for [t] and [h])
• Include the figures from separate files with \input, which will make them much easier to move around when you're doing the final tuning

In my experience, this is a big eater-up of non-available time (:-)

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In reply to Jon's comment, I think this is an inherently difficult problem, because the LaTeX guys are no slouches. You may like to read Frank Mittelbach's paper.

Yes, include float package into the top of your document and H (capital H) as a figure specifier:

\usepackage{float}

\begin{figure}[H]
.
.
.
\end{figure}

You can always add the "!" into your float-options. This way, latex tries really hard to place the figure where you want it (I mostly use [h!tb]), stretching the normal rules of type-setting.

I have found another solution:
Use the float-package. This way you can place the figures where you want them to be.