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heck !

Yeah sure. In yr child theme center div#access………..grrrrrrrr

As a quick hack you can use display:none in the CSS 😉

You might need to center the access div……..

Well proper browsers let you use anything as an anchor not just a link……..

Its not inconceieveable that its been done with CSS.

Here u go

// no more jumping for read more link
function no_more_jumping($post) {
	return '<a href="'.get_permalink($post->ID).'" class="read-more">'.'Continue Reading'.'</a>';
}
add_filter('excerpt_more', 'no_more_jumping');

I dont think you are on the right lines here. It is not necessary to include the image in the html via a template. To accommodate IE it is the link which needs to be clickable. Not the zone it is in. We would normally
set the link to display: block and increase its height so it fills its parent container. Then we set the fancy bg up in the css as a background.
Understood correctly this is a CSS question not a php / template thing.