I would say that they /don't/ always read from left to right. I have seen a few in Japanese publications that are right-to-left and even some that were top-to-bottom. It is most likely a choice based on what your audience will find most comfortable and what best illustrates the concept you are communicating.

I am personally a fan of the timelines created by Wired.com (example in sources) because they use more than one or all of the elements you mentioned and are typically narrow in scope and visually appealing. The one I have liked includes jumbled images but I find this a stylistic choice that make the timeline more enjoyable to view instead of less.

On the negative side of that coin,I hate stumbling across timelines like this:

http://www.timelines.info/history/ages_and_periods/the_modern_world/science_and_technology/space_exploration/

They are too complicated and involved and because of the amount of information they represent they fail to make the original point - the sequence of events and their relationship to time.
Source(s):
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/17.01/ff_mac_viewer.html
http://www.timelines.info/history/ages_and_periods/the_modern_world/science...

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