I've just been using the Quick Reply function lately. I'm not that active nowadays anyway, so it doesn't make a heck of a lot of difference and the Quick Reply box is advanced enough to do what I want.
But I agree with T-nex, maybe it would be a good idea to remove the limit completely? Considering most members simply add things like "10 characters" to their short posts to make them long enough, the limit doesn't really seem to do much good anyway.