That's a good set of questions, alright. I might be able to help on the phone side.

For DATA, the most common spec is CAT5e, which is mostly just a tightly controlled version of CAT5. The spec includes the cable, the connectors, and the method. CAT5 is 4 twisted pairs, and an RJ-45 type connector. You can run telephone over this stuff, but the phone connectors often don't fit quite right, either electrically or mechanically. 10 or 100BaseT Ethernet is the most common thing used on CAT5, and it only uses 2 of the 4 pairs. You have to have all 4 pairs to meet the spec, though.

For PHONE, the closest data spec is CAT3, the ends are RJ-11, and the cable is usually 4 wire. The wiring can be much less specific and still work. That's not true at all with data.

(I put the above part in because if you start calling telco stuff CAT5, data and probably phone people will look at you funny.)

Data and phone should never been run within the same cable. The signals would likely interfere, and I believe it's a code violation as they're different classes of wiring.

I don't think its good practice to run data/phone and power through the same holes if it's easily avoidable.

Ok, what am I missing...

Home runs: For data, normally you want everything to come back to a common point, where the datacom stuff is. The runs for CAT5 have to be less than 100 meters, including any patch cords used at the ends. The cable should be one continuous run, no splices at all. Cables that violate these rules usually don't work.

For phone, daisy chain is fine, home runs are fine, it doesn't matter unless someone wants to use their phone wiring for something else, or have some rooms on different phones or something. For even a small business, with only 1 phone line, it's good practice to run all phone lines as home runs back to one point. This allows much more flexibility for future devices.

66 Blocks - Great for phone, no-go for data. Telephone guys use them because they're inexpensive, reliable, neat, and very fast. Now it's usually 110 blocks, but the principle is the same. (110 blocks aren't good for data either, no matter what any marketing stuff might say.) It wouldn't be overkill in a nice big home, not sure about an average one.

I would wire all four wires at the phone jack end, and carry all four wires though any splices you do in the building. Then at the board, just terminate the center pair.

I don't know what the current practices are for video. If it were my house, I'd want home runs back to a board. That way I could setup the splitters any way I want.

For a normal sized house, if you brought all the phone and TV back to one spot, had an 18"x18" or so piece of plywood mounted on the wall, terminated the phone stuff to a small 66 or 110 block, put ends on the TV lines and connected them to a four or five way passive splitter mounted to the board, I think you'd be a hero. If you daisy chained some of the phone lines, I doubt if anyone would complain.

One last thing - when you do video, please put terminators on any unused splitter outputs. If you don't, they leak RF all over the place, annoying ham radio operators. [Linked Image]