:: If you use the new character set UTF8. Old character sets
:: (UNICODE_FSS) will continue to have the old behavior. Which

Is UTF8 a new 2.0 option? Even then characters are not always a single byte
in UTF8 - so will it account for this properly too?

:: by the was is not uncommon in other databases - MySQL
:: certainly behaves that way.

MySQL isnt the database I would par yourself against. That's like saying
"Well VB does it this way"