It seems to be a common occurence that an author/submitter writes an article, "publishes" it (so it is approved, as they have the security to do so), but the article doesn't show up in the list.

Most common reason is that the publish date-time has not occurred yet.

In this instance, there doesn't seem to be any way I can use to look at *all* articles.  If I go to My Articles, the article won't show (because I didn't author it).  If I try draft/expired articles checkbox, that doesn't work, because the article is already approved.

Is there any way to look at *all* articles in the module instance somehow (for admin/host accounts)?

Not currently, but I am thinking of refining the interface for approve articles, my articles etc, to be one screen that has a lot of configuration options. This shoudl help to reduce code maintenance and help increase usability.

There probably would be flags for show future dated articles only, etc..