Isn't it possible to put html in a free form text field and have it render? Links and so on? I thought that was the case, but it's not rendering. Tried with and without outer quotes.

No possible with Free-Form Text as far as I know, but is should be possible with Rich Text, give it a try.

If I recall correctly, that only works for Suitelet fields. I have used that approach for a "View" column in the sublist portion of the Suitelet. For some reason, NS renders the HTML for them.