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Does the phrase (in appropriate form) simply mean that rectangles are appropriate for the items or is it levying some sort of constraint on what will be considered valid submission?

And a 6!

Such a pity I cannot add up! Panic over. Thanks

buzzb, I think appropriate form applies to the items themselves and not whatever sort of container you choose to place around them.

buzzb - the title is not unimportant here.

Can I get some help parsing ...

14a - Expert sizing (7, two words)

I have the answer but cannot fathom how "expert" provides the wordplay, with or without omitted letters?

In each item one or two letters are omitted in the wordplay for the across entries they are in; the affected clues omit either one or (in one case) three letters.

It's a double def, brendan - the preamble mentions one clue with more than one or two... (the 'expert' is a short word).

Okay, thank you Drxx.

I got the extra item first and have been struggling to find the principal seven.

I’m wondering if I’m misunderstanding the preamble in some way—if I’m reading it correctly, it seems to suggest that any across answer that intersects with any of the seven items must itself have at least one missing wordplay letter? If so I have found several invalid items and I can’t tell if those are intentional red herrings or if I’m simply misreading the instructions.

Not every across answer that passes through an 'item' is affected, only enough of them to provide 1 or 2 missing letters per 'item'.
Although the 'items' feature 1 or 2 unclued letters, only one letter is unclued per affected answer (apart from the exception mentioned in the preamble).