Changing TEXT to VARCHAR
This sounds vaguely familiar. Oh yea, I wrote about this back on Aug 14, 2012  : error 1118: row size too large. utf8 innodb. Here is additional information from a Percona Expert on this subject : InnoDB create table error: “Row size too large”

I can see this putting a strain on an InnoDB table in terms of row length limits. Turning TEXT fields of ominous lengths into VARCHARs or even CHARs in InnoDB will have no effect (at least, no positive effects).

Your concern is quite valid and merits some respect. Why?

Some would do one of the following:


Perform the conversion and deal with (mostly complain about) worse consequences
Perform the conversion in a Development server, see the effects, and judge accordingly
Ask why, do research, carry out due diligence in a Development server


It sounds like you did Option #3 from the above list. Your conclusion, given the lengths of data, is correct for your given dataset.