Hm, I *could* probably make it be like a pop-out inspector just for editing the text property (like the popout text data editor) but from a UX perspective, that's really just about the same as the extra component I wrote anyway...? Both would solve the performance issue in the inspector by having a different text box to type into, while hiding the original. Now, I *could* add a toggle for hiding the text box on the base inspector for this, like the different foldouts for sections on the STM inspector! So if you have a large amount of text, you can just collapse that part of the inspector? I can test later if that has a performance boost!
So I'd really like to fix this properly, but ultimately is seems to be a Unity bottleneck issue, I've got a fix already which could potentially lead to a more permanent fix down the line, and the issue is editor-only in a very specific scenario... so I *think* this workaround is acceptable for now?
I'm curious about your actual in-game use for this, by the way! Because I figure... once the prefab is set up, wouldn't new text be sent to it via a script in-game anyway? I'm very used to all text in games being stored in a dialogue manager rather than on any prefab instances, so I'm wondering if besides the fact I *want* to fix it... if it's an issue Unity has had since 2020... is there any *need* to if there's a working solution and Unity's own issues can't be pierced?