All I can do with you on that one is commiserate. I agree it's tough watching for the rug to be swept out from under you all the time. I've gotten into the habit of spending ~1 hour per week at work going through all of the release notes and blogs of all of the software I use at work (Normally my Monday mornings, which is why I'm here right now...)
Anyways, I'm back in the office and here's a copy & paste from my updated templates. The "currentLayer" tag here is the new one I was describing:
${image_location | drawingInfo:"currentLayer"| mapSettings:" b2519fd7a45647a0946f50b0535b6ddd":36000| size:175:250:0:0}
I can't even find the blog post that this was first mentioned in, but I see that it's been added to the help doc for the report template:
https://doc.arcgis.com/en/survey123/browser/analyze-results/featurereporttemplates.htm
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If your survey doesn't contain a map question or you're creating reports for feature layers without an associated survey, the geometry of a question can still be returned using the ${$shape} placeholder.
By default, a map question will display using a default map symbol, regardless of symbology set in the feature layer. You can use the drawingInfo method to extract and use the drawing information stored in a specific feature layer, including the symbol, label, and transparency used. You can specify this information either from the current layer or from a specific feature layer through a provided URL.
${location | drawingInfo:"currentLayer"}
${location | drawingInfo:"https://.../FeatureServer/0"}
If your survey doesn't contain a map question or you're creating reports for feature layers without an associated survey, the geometry of a record can still be returned using the ${$shape} placeholder.
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And I can confirm that it works for points and area features. In the web map being called, my point features will display a radar box/arrow icon (that's hosted elsewhere) based on the viewing direction if it's available. If not, a blue circle will be displayed. Started working perfectly as soon as I put that flag in there to use current layer from the web map.