I'm giving special heed to Bohr's remarks. Wikipedia notes that one can speak of the "collpase", or simply say that the theory makes predictions without granting any kind of physical reality to wavefunctions ( or propagators. )
"Niels Bohr emphasized that it is only the results of the experiments that should be predicted, and therefore the additional questions are not scientific but rather philosophical."
Taking this lead, I've always seen the CI as the "bare bones" interpretation, which contents itself with the predictions made using the theory. Bohr emphasized that we are constrained to speak and understand in everyday terms, and the theory itself is part of our everyday experience of pencils and paper and apparatus.
Even allowing that the condition of the cat is "undefined", we can take this to mean it is undefined by the theory, which is plain to see since its predictions are probabilistic. To put any more into it is mere mystification, as I see it, and I believe I'm following Bohr in this.
... and yet! ... and yet! One can never be very happy with this view, can one? The mystery of QM is ineluctable.
I would also comment that I put a lot of weight on Feynman's remarks on neutron scattering in a crystal in his Lectures Vol. III, 3-3. He contrasts the case of no-spin-interaction, where the scattering nucleus is indeterminate, with the spin-interaction case, where a particular nucleus is affected by the scattering. Thus the crystal itself "observes" the scattering, and localizes the interaction.
"You may argue, 'I don't care which atom is up.' Perhaps you don't, but nature knows; ..."
This obviates the question of an "observer", since after all why may not the cat be regarded as an observer, or what if we put a physicist in there? Or for that matter a clock, or any kind of recording instrument?