...been reading some posts regarding the cell's capability for text
length and there is definitely a problem...

While the help states that 1024 of the 32K characters will be
displayed in the cell vs the formula bar, using the len function, i
see this is not correct.  any characters beyond 255, and the entire
string ends up being displayed as a series of '#'.  Whether or not
multiple cells are merged, word wrapped or even using alt+enter.
Currently, the merged cell is 970 pixels wide and 250 pixels high,
word wrap enabled, and still *all* my text (in the that cell) is
masked after the 256th character is entered.  Setting the column width
to 'auto fit' also does not correct the bug.

There do not appear to be any settings in 'tools\options' to modify
this behavior to its claimed default.