I think Dave misunderstands what manton is doing in regards to the character limit. The character limit does not apply to blog posts, the character limit applies to what appears in the micro.blog timeline. As has always been, posts that are longer than X character are linked to the associated blog post that contains all of the content. From my perspective, how micro.blog handles long posts in it’s timeline is the same as how Feedland handles long posts in the feeds list.
Manton could change how the timeline works to expand/collapse long posts like Dave does in the Feedland “news” display, but that is his prerogative as the hosting/platform provider. As a writer, I am willing to work within the constraints that he is providing. I don’t see the constraint as limiting me as a writer in any way because the full content is provided on my blog, which frankly is where I prefer people to actual go and read what I write.