Q: How do I set the exit code of a one line command to 1 if the result if blank? If have a command, say echo "", and I want the exit code of that to be 1, however if I were to run the command echo "foo" I would want the status code to be 0.

A: I'd use a function for that:
notblank() {
    local result
    result=$( "$@" )     # execute the command and capture the output
    echo "$result"
    [[ -n "$result" ]]
}

Then:
$ notblank echo "hello"; echo $?
hello
0

$ notblank echo "$noSuchVariable"; echo $?

1

specifically for echo:
myecho() { echo "$*"; [[ -n "$*" ]]; }

or even
echo() {
    builtin echo "$*"
    [[ -n "$*" ]]
}

but echo -n "some string" will not respect the -n option. That can be worked around, but at the cost of more complexity:
echo () {
    local opt OPTIND OPTARGS
    local echo_opts=()
    while getopts :neE opt; do
        case $opt in
            [neE]) echo_opts+=("-$opt") ;;
            ?)  echo "invalid option: -$OPTARG" >&2
                return 1
                ;;
        esac
    done
    shift $((OPTIND - 1))

    builtin echo "${echo_opts[@]}" "$*"
    [[ -n "$*" ]]
}

