Some sort of variable to eliminate duplicate text?

This is partially supported in Markdown. You can define a label at the bottom of the document, and use that label, e.g.:

![ImageUnavailable|100x100][oops]

[oops]: upload://oqu98iBGGNSyDEolbFUxA5cJyiv.png

(Note: the label goes in square brackets.)

It doesn’t replace the whole thing for you, just the URL, but maybe that’s good for starters?