Does anyone know of a service (preferably free) similar to Brightcove's Console? Something where I can create and customize ad-free players and then be provided with a publisher's code to embed the working player on my domain? I love most of Brightcove, but have a few issues with it as well...

Try www.blip.tv. There's no advertising and the quality and size restrictions are much better than YouTube. They have an embedable player and it's free.

I would agree with Chris. I just watched a screen capture video that was hosted there, exploded to full screen and it was amazingly clean. Even readable!!! I haven't really checked out the service yet. I do use Revver, but that has advertisements. You could always just host them on your own server.