Can new types of transactions be included the current block chain?
Miners will accept block with transactions they don't understand, so long as the transactions don't attempt to create Bitcoins out of thin air. They won't include transactions they can't validate in their own mined blocks though.

There is active effort at the top levels of the Bitcoin developers to get new transaction types into the client. M-of-N transactions (transactions that require a set of signatures), for example, are close to obtaining a consensus.