Tony, thanks for asking these great questions.
So much depends (and not on red wheelbarrows). If the iambic pulse is really clear surrounding the lines that take liberties, I'll look for any possible way to hear the line as having five pulses, even if it means leaving a blank, as in your examples.
The only one of your examples that gives me pause is this one:
(x) (x) / bland sky/ that bel/lies down /at dusk
Now "bland" takes a long time to say, so this particular instance is more arguably a real spondee than many other examples might be. But speaking more generally, it can be tough to hear five feet in an eight-syllable line. To hear this as actual pentameter, rather than hearing two blanks I'm probably going to hear a semi-syllable in the voiced sound at the end of the word:
(x) BLA| nd SKY | that BEL | lies DOWN | at DUSK
The risk is that the reader, in the habit of expecting a less-stressed syllable at the start of a line, and of hearing an adjective as a little lighter than its noun, will hear only four feet in this line
bland SKY that BEL lies DOWN at DUSK
It seems to me that Ciardi's translations of Dante use a similarly free approach to pentameter in order to hew close to the meaning while keeping the idiom modern. Nemerov objected, but most people have kept right on liking C's approach.
That's what I think. I know, though, that when I first starting hanging around here I caught large amounts of heck from Alan Sullivan for the looseness of my lines. So I think there'll be lots different reads on this.
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