1) Most contracts spell out very well what the author will do to market the book, but say little about what the publisher will do to market it.
This is a discussion that author and editor should have before the author ever signs on the dotted line. It isn't standard practice to include marketing specifics in contracts. Authors should sign with publishers they've researched and are knowledgeable about what kind of promotion, marketing, and distribution the publisher has.
It also might be good to insist that it be shown that the book is stocked in a certain amount of stores within a certain time limit, reach a certain amount of sales, etc.
What would that time limit be? Sometimes a book takes awhile to find its sea legs.
As to your idea of a certain amount of stores, publishers have no control over this. B&N issues invoices from their corporate genre buyers. Where those books go, and to what stores is completely out of our hands because it's a BN decision.
2) I would suggest that there is a time limit on the contract that is not the length of the copyright. I personally would say 5-10 years maximum.
Many contracts have a clause that allow for rights reversion based on sales. If, in X number of quarters, sales fall below a certain number, the author may ask for their rights back.
3) I would suggest that the price they charge the author for the book be specified, not just a percent of the list price. The problem of a percent of a list price is that if the list price is set high, which often they are, it can make it so the author's price is so high that he/she has no margin to make a resale.
Solid publishers set their retail prices by market and printing costs. Authors buy in very small amounts compared to what sells in bookstores and online stores.
And many times, publishers send out cases of books for free to their authors. I'm a very small publisher, and I do this all the time. Or I sell them their book for more than a 50% discount because they want books for back of the room sales at their offsite events. Those author sales are a drop in the bucket.
So I think your main argument here is with the type of publishers you're dealing with.
4) I would make sure it doesn't ask for any derivative rights.
This is simply a negotiation point in the contract.
5) I'd make sure the author controls rights like for movies, etc.
Again, this is a negotiation point, and no big deal.
6) Another thing I've seen in some books is that one author's book has the listing of different authors for the company. This is fine to a degree, but I have seen where one author's book is almost given away and he makes almost no money as it is used to drive the sales of another author's books.
If I'm understanding your correctly, this is a marketing decision, and it's usually a short term thing. I seriously doubt that any author who has the audience to drive sales toward another author isn't, himself, getting screwed. He's the golden goose.
I realize this is off topic from the WiDo discussion, but it's important to understand how publishing really works. There are all kinds of publishers, and the size of the publisher isn't as important as their ability to sell books. It seems that your experiences have been with lesser quality publishers. Perhaps if you refined your search to solid publishers, you would avoid the things you believe should be in contracts.