The result you get turns out to depend on what kind of window you're pasting it into. I use the "Standard Editor -- Extra Formatting Controls" and I can copy-paste either the name of the link or the URL but not both at once. When I switch to the "WYSIWYG" editor (), I can copy-paste the whole link, name plus URL, in one operation.

-----------------------
Firefox 12, Windows XP. I'll have to see if this works with Firefox 2 which I use on my other computer (under Windows 98). I wouldn't expect it to.