I haven't been able to search-fu any way to do this... But I was wondering if it was possible to remove the auto-included character portrait in the character description. I'm not too great at formatting, and working around it is a wee bit awkward for me.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the only way to disable portraits from showing is to disable portraits under your user preferences. I don't think there is any means to keep them from showing universally under description. User preferences determines what shows for each player/member.