Well before you get too upset, let me assure you that the cores do work as I am using them in a few projects now. They do have their caveats but they do work.
One block I'm not familiar with is the Test Pattern block. What do you have it configured to generate?
What is your Video Output Format?
Do you have the scaler set up for dynamic reconfiguration? This is a bug I found in 7.2. If I didn't enable the control port on the scaler, It would do something similar to what your mentioning like displaying the image multiple times across the width of the frame. You don't necessarily have to reconfigure it, it just has to be enabled.
Your last mentioned scheme is the one you should use:
Test Pattern -> Scaler -> Frame Buffer -> Mixer -> Video Out
Test Pattern -----------------------------^
Jake