I have a late 2007 MBP too (superdrive removed) and was never able to boot and install an OS straight from USB(tried refit and refind too)
, be it clonezilla, Win 7 32/64Bit; only OS X works via USB. (Windows via superdrive worked flawlessly).
Luckily I had an old winclone backup I could use, when I replaced the SSD last year.
It sounds like you have one of the last of the early 64-bit Macs that had a 32-bit EFI. They were difficult beasts to get working with anything other than officially supported macOS versions. You can follow the guide linked below but basically you need to create a 32/64 hybrid EFI boot image. There were some Windows machines (mainly BayTrail and similar vintage tablets) that also had this issue and the solution is very similar.
Thanks for the hint ("beast" descibes it perfectly :) ), seems mine is castrated:
"Furthermore, it appears that although subsequently released MacBook, MacBook Air, and pre-"Mid-2010" Mac mini models all are equipped with "Core 2 Duo" 64-bit processors and 64-bit EFIs, Apple has blocked these "consumer-targeted" Macs from booting in 64-bit mode. iMac and MacBook Pro models released in 2007 with 64-bit EFIs seem to have been blocked as well."
Ouch, I had forgotten about those specific devices. I had a Mac Mini Core Duo that I had upgraded to a Core2 Duo and was never able to get Snow Leopard to boot into 64-bit mode. I was able to get Linux and even OpenBSD installed on it using the previously mentioned bootia32.efi method.
Also, you may be able to boot 64-bit macOS on your system if you follow the netkas.org link from your everymac.com link:
Is the EFI in newer MBP still that picky?
Did you have success with this tool?