paulus1031 unfortunately, in terms of sef urls, the directory component doesn't work without sh404sef, so we're stuck with it. (this is clearly a deficiency of the component we are using, but at scale, all directory components and templates range from functionally useless to terrible; the one we are using actually works at scale so we need to struggle through.) purging the urls in sh404sef successfully resolved the issue with articles.
edit: the issue with truncation still exists. 'round to whole word.' seems to cause the issue.
