"View unpublished content" permission for non-author
If you're ok writing a very small custom module you could use a combination of hook_permission() and hook_node_access() to do this:

function MYMODULE_permission() {
  return array(
    'unconditionally view unpublished content' =&gt; array(
      'title' =&gt; t('Unconditionally View Unpublished Content'),
      'restrict access' =&gt; TRUE
    )
  );
}

function MYMODULE_node_access($node, $op, $account) {
  // We're only bothered about the 'view' operation at the moment
  if ($op == 'view') {
    // If the user has access to our new permission, let 'em at it
    if (user_access('unconditionally view unpublished content', $account)) {
      return NODE_ACCESS_ALLOW;
    }
  }

  // For everything else let the system decide.
  return NODE_ACCESS_IGNORE;
}


Any role you assign the new permission to should now be able to view any node, regardless of whether it's published or not.