Best SEO Practices... How Do You Avoid Issues With Penguin and Panda?

You're right from top to bottom!

Quality content and quality, natural (-looking) backlinks is what you need. Filling your blog with automatic content would probably do you no good if you're counting on SEO.

be an honest marketer,
dont try to trick google,
make google love your site: QUALITY USER EXPERIENCE AND CONTENT
stay away from spammy links direct to your site, build quality backlinks manually less automation.
If you are using automated posting for posts on wordpress then add in a good re-write engine best spinner etc to re-write articles before they get posted so that it is at least more unique (try check them manually too to avoid grammar hickups)
and lastly mix in original unique content (buy cheap articles that are written for you only) with the autocontent. All together it will make a decent site -

lets take wprobot as an example - you can post amazon details from them - make CUSTOM templates, and change them often - so for example change the layout and add your own text inside the temaplte so they have some original bits to them. as well as original articles.

hire a good SEO (people think this needs to be expensive but it really isnt! and you get the quality which lasts - post panda and penguin you want o think more longterm especially if you wish to keep your site online for more than a year)
Let me know if that helps and if I may be able to help further PM me

yea its all about quality content these days and there is no way round it even if we are lucky enough to find a sneaky little way google wont be far behind closing that door so as the above all you can do now is follow goolges guidelines and there is no stopping you..