OK, so two definitive suggestions here, from JJ and Hutch. Regarding JJs, that's setting the text limit to the max. Hutch recommends some smaller values. Are there any bad consequences to setting the text limit to such high values? Will the edit control eat up all available memory?
Swordfish, I don't think you quite grasp the situation. You wrote "You only need to then retrieve text length AFTER text has been added.". But that would require a time machine; without increasing the text limit in the situation I described, you can't add any more text to the control. See how that works?
Again, ballparking seems to be the answer here. The question is about the size of the ballpark; Little League or Shea Stadium?