Because one could argue that using 'with' could cause some readability issues.

I would say that 

with

 is idiomatically 'wrong', you would rather use 

apply

 here because you are directly editing the object:

binding.apply {
    mImageView.setImageBitmap(item.bitmap)
    mdate.text = item.dateCreated

    mtext.apply {
        if (data[position].title.length > 6) {
            ellipsize = TextUtils.TruncateAt.MARQUEE
            isSelected = true
            isSingleLine = true
            text = (item.title + " ".repeat(10)).repeat(200)
        } else {
            text = item.title
        }
    }
}

Other than that, 

apply

 is perfectly valid and idiomatic here. If you actually want the two levels of 

apply

 here is up to you.

with

, however, is rather for situations where you want to bring an object into scope for other calculations (i.e., more or less read only):

val myColor = with(MaterialTheme.colors) {
    if (myCondition) primary else secondary
}

Makes sense

Sorry I'm late to the party but when the piece of code wrapped in

with

or

apply

is long and mixed in other business logic like this, I would actually really go for an extension function instead

Thanks for the feedback 🙂