So, the whitespace issue was related to sharedaddy, not infinite-scrolling. I've managed to resolve it by putting the following in my theme CSS:
div.sharedaddy:before,
div.sharedaddy:after,
div.sharedaddy .sd-block:before,
div.sharedaddy .sd-block:after,
div.sharedaddy ul:before,
div.sharedaddy ul:after {
display: inline-block !important;
}
div.sharedaddy,
#content div.sharedaddy,
#main div.sharedaddy {
clear: none !important;
}
Now I'm still having an issue with the third post being called into the loop showing up twice when Jetpack/infinite-scrolling is enabled.
Again: Post number 3 should only show up once, in third place, but infinite-scrolling pulls it in again after the new "page load". making it show up again between post 7 and 8. I'm trying to fix this issue myself but any help would be appreciated. Thanks.