I think it's better to solve this with a custom template override of the article view. Because it's not sufficient to add an option "Below & Above" to the plugin. The article view must understand this setting. Not that difficult for the core templates but most 3rd-templates will not understand the setting without code updates.

You can display the page navigation in an article view wherever you want with these lines:

<?php
if (!empty($this->item->pagination)) :
	echo $this->item->pagination;
?>
<?php endif; ?>

+1 for this being something that you do in a template override and not for the core

Set to "closed" on behalf of @franz-wohlkoenig by The JTracker Application at issues.joomla.org/joomla-cms/23301

closed based on Answers above. Issue can always be reopened.