*Also* (in what you can certainly call me out as trying to "troubleshoot this backwards"), going back to your original question: Is there anything in the Report Definition that let's you customize the look of the rows... I suggest taking a look at the "Display rows using custom section" option on the Report Viewer tab.

I think this might be what you are really looking for. It's actually an improvement over the list view functionality in that you can manage the conditional layouts of your row display leveraging an auto-generated section rule. It will probably require some playing around with, but I suggest giving it a shot.

Here's a basic overview of the option (and its limitations) as documented in the Help:

• Display rows using custom section - Optional. Available only for list reports. Select to replace the default display for each row of a report with a custom section. A field opens where you can select the section. Select the edit icon to create a new custom section.
  
  Sections used for this purpose can have simple controls such as text fields, but cannot use complex controls such as grids or trees.
  
  Test any custom sections you that use for displaying rows. You might get unexpected results as the report definition tries to populate a section that does not account for all the properties it displays.
  
  Nested sections might not render properly when used as custom sections. When a window is resized, the width of the custom section does not automatically resize. Design the custom section to fit into the smallest display size that is possible.