Hi Danny,

Kindly find my response to your inquiries below:
1. Any chance we can get auto truncation to still show a video or image teaser when there's no cover ?
-> Of course you can by setting the image/video to be shows after truncation (Settings>Layout>Truncation)
Refer these: http://screencast.com/t/muXOYYi8
According to the coding, it is default behavior where (video/images) from external link will not shows in the listing as it is from a whole html block as it was truncated as you've on the automate truncation