It there a way to limit how much text is included in a rich text excerpt macro?

[rpeterson@healthdialog.com]

Rich text excerpt displays are confusingly formatted, yet I'd like more than a simple one liner from the more terse "simple" (which looks exactly like "none, btw). For instance, it'd be great to have the page title and the first line/div/block of the body. But I get multiple blocks and the result is a mess.

I'd even be happy with a manually-insertable "cut" marker, but less happy than something more automatic.