Khaled's seems like a fair assessment. >Masking< is highly contextual and limitations placed on its output seem to be within reason. Length limitations of userid masking has always been a song and dance, especially when considering tilde marking, so it'd be prudent to maintain compatibility with the most restrictive server's length implementations (on banmasks, etc).
I too was guilty of using $address($me,5) to retrieve my $fulladdress, instead of using $ial($me). Clarity in documentation may be warranted; pointing users to $ial(nickname).
I wonder if $address(nickname,5) should return nickname!*onguserid@host.name, where $ial(nickname) returns nickname!verylonguserid@host.name, or just maintain its current behavior.
I wonder if $address(nickname) should return $ial(nickname), making mask-type an optional parameter. Maybe useful for selective outputs with $address(nickname,%i) where %i can be $null or omitted.
