What was wrong with 500chars?
The fact that your signature is quite often longer (in some cases significantly longer, such as every post of yours in this thread) than your posts.
Some people are still using dial-up; and some others (such as myself) just like threads that don't have half of their page height taken up with signatures.
In general, four lines is considered to be the maximum 'polite' length for a signature. Yes, with modern wide-screen displays and small fonts, it can be easily possible to exceed 255 characters (and possibly even 500,) while staying within 4 lines (see MrMacPlus.) That said, having a fixed character limit can help to encourage shorter signatures. (And, obviously, it is possible to have a 255-line signature in 255 characters; not counting blank lines!)
Your signature is 16 lines long. Five lines detailing your machines (which could easily be placed in one potentially line-wrapping line,) one line detailing the fact that you have liberated one single 68k Mac, six lines dedicated to 'cruft', and four blank lines.
Yes, the bunny was funny the first two or three times I saw it. It's not any more. Yes, the quotes are each semi-funny. Pick one.
You could quite easily be down to 255 characters; and/or 4 lines, and avoid annoying people in the process. A quick search of your posts reveals that in the latest three pages of your posts, you have only *ONE* post with more lines of original writing of your own than your signature takes up. And it has 17 lines to your signature's 16. (In fact, if you hadn't used a double-line break in that message, it would be equal to your signature in lines.)
I am not saying that your contributions to this forum are unwelcome; not at all. I am merely pointing out that your
signature is a cause for annoyance.
(Yes, I've been too lazy to make a signature on here. I suppose I'll go copy my .sig from either MacRumors or The Vintage Computer Forums...)