When sharing links, use the article title as the underlined link text rather than the URL itself -- the URL link can be 8+ lines in a text message which is wasted space in a message. A "title" link immediately shows if the link is of interest.

This suggestion is not the "turn off link preview" suggestion which you have addressed ; it seems related to "enable link preview like Verizon message+" which I supported -- I'm not sure how useful a picture would be in addition to the title.