I've updated my Max.Doc with the following details for personal reference: 

  WARNING!   Currently the Maximum number of messages per area is 65535.
  15-Feb'08  This appears to be a Maximus imposed limit, and not a limit
             of Squish itself (The Squish library used in EleBBS (MkMsg) 
             uses a signed 32bit integer for message numbers (ie. 2^31-1, 
             over 2 billion). The Maximus messages per area limit may be
             increased in a future version.

             During testing, Squish appears to support message sizes of 
             more than 4.45 MBytes. But MaxEd can only browse about 
             32,768 bytes of those messages. Further more, the Upload_Msg 
             function will truncate messages at 8,192 bytes. Also, when
             using your communication software's ASCII upload feature 
             within MaxEd it will truncate at 250 lines.

             There're also theoretical file system limits, but those are 
             practically irrelevant. According to wikipedia the maximum 
             files on NTFS is 4 trillion, and something about VolumeSize 
             / 2^12 inodes for EXT3. EXT2 has a 1.3 x 10^20 per directory.
             
             Note the following file system folder limitations, which 
             could restrict the Maximus theoretical limits depending on 
             how you organise your areas: 

               FAT16        512
               FAT32        65,534 files or folders per folder
               NTFS         4,294,967,295
               path+filename    <259

             Message Limits:

             These tests remain inconclusive at this stage, but Maximus
             appears to have the following message limits: 

             Maximum number of file/message areas          Unlimited
             Maximum number of messages per area           65535
             Maximum EchoMail message size                 8-32k (?)
             Maximum number of lines in messages           250
             Maximum number of network addresses           16
             Maximum number of nodes you can scan to       Untested
             Maximum length of echomail area tag           Untested

Here's the TUB thread during my half-assed testing: 

* Forwarded from TUB by Minh Van Le (3:712/104{at}fidonet).
* Originally by: Minh Van Le (3:712/104{at}fidonet), 15-Feb'08 08:34.
* Originally to: All (3:712/848).

---------- Forwarded message Begin ----------
{at}MSGID: 3:712/104{at}fidonet 47b5422d
I just did some tests, and managed to successfully import a 4.45 mb
binkd.log into a Squish area using MsgEd. I could browse to the last line
Ok. But MaxED (the Maximus editor) could only display 623 lines (or ~37,466
bytes) of that message.

I attempted to upload the file via the Msg_Upload menu option using mTelnet
Zmodem and it cut off at 144 lines with,

=============================
Saving your message
Message too long -- Truncated.
 (#6).
=============================

Exporting the saved message to disk reveals the 144 line message is about
8,122 - 8,384 bytes (I did two upload tests):

===============================================
15/02/08  08:45                  8,384 test1.txt
15/02/08  09:22                  8,122 test2.txt
===============================================

And when doing a mTelnet ASCII upload inside MaxEd, it looked like it
uploads the text line-by-line properly until about the 250th line when it
starts truncating the MaxEd display. (250 lines of my Binkd.log was 14,774
bytes). The Windows NT virtual memory usage went through the roof, and
eventually crashed the taskmanager, the mouse froze and I had to cold boot.
Heh. This may have been a Maximus/NetFoss NTVDM or mTelnet problem. Who
knows.

+---------+
| Results |
+---------+

It looks like Squish can handle more than 4.5 mb messages. But I don't know
the theoretical message size limit. 4.5 mbs is good enough for me.

And most of the limits seen so far are due to Maximus. Somebody needs to up
the int types to floating doubles in the Maximus source. 

Apparently if you want to post a large message, import it using an editor
other than MaxEd or Maximus functions (which seems to only be able to view
35'ish kbs of the whole message and/or accept 8 kb - 14 (maybe 16) kb
uploads).

+------------+
| Conclusion |
+------------+

Inconclusive. But, 

             Maximum number of file/message areas          Unlimited
             Maximum number of message per area            65535
             Maximum EchoMail message size                 8-32k (?)
             Maximum number of lines in messages           250
             Maximum number of network addresses           16
             Maximum number of nodes you can scan to       Unknown
             Maximum length of echomail area tag           Unknown

Here's the thread from RA_SUPPORT: 

* Forwarded from RA_SUPPORT by Minh Van Le (3:712/104{at}fidonet).
* Originally by: Minh Van Le (3:712/104{at}fidonet), 15-Feb'08 06:27.
* Originally to: Scott Little (3:712/848).

---------- Forwarded message Begin ----------
{at}MSGID: 3:712/104{at}fidonet 47b53945
{at}REPLY: 3:712/848 47b43be6
Hello Scott !

On 14-Feb'08 23:52, Scott Little wrote to Minh Van Le:

 SL> Yes.  Most (all?) tossers allow you to specify the full 
 SL> path and filename for each area.

 SL> I keep mine in lettered subdirectories (\fido\a\a*, 
 SL> \fido\b\b*, etc).

Out of curiosity, what are those denoting ? a, b, c, etc. fido echo names ?

 SL> There are probably old DOS based repair tools.  I haven't 
 SL> had a corrupt message base since I stopped using DOS so it 
 SL> hasn't been an issue.  I still keep full archives of 

Maybe you needed to up your SHARE.EXE= :) ...

 SL> everything though (all incoming mail files are backed up as 
 SL> they are, the message bases are backed up before and after 
 SL> nightly maintenance and I have the mail tosser send a copy 
 SL> of everything passing through to a local point address).

I just backup incoming mail :) And full m:\bbs backups after a while.

I got 18 mbs in my message base :)

=================================================
 Subj : dir /s m:\base\MSGBASE report
 Attr : Pvt Loc
ÄÄÄ3:712/104{at}fidonetÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ 2008-02-15 07:42:32

     Total Files Listed:
             923 File(s)     18,754,826 bytes
                            657,117,184 bytes free

-+- MakeMsg v2.31
 + Origin: mmbatch.bat
=================================================

How long is your redundancy ?

 SL> However.. Squish is probably the better of the two, should 
 SL> it become damaged.  Since it only has one real data file, 
 SL> the rest can be regenerated from that.  JAM keeps the 
 SL> message text and metadata in two separate files so if they 
 SL> get out of sync, you're hosed.

Woohoo ! score for Squish. I knew Squish was better.

 ML> In Maximus the Squish areas have a maximum message limit of 
 ML> 65535. But I'm not sure if this is a limitation of Squish, 
 ML> Maximus or editor. Would be handy to know.

 SL> Looks to be a Maximus limit.  The Squish library used in 
 SL> EleBBS (MkMsg) uses a signed 32bit integer for message 
 SL> numbers (ie. 2^31-1, over 2 billion).

That's handy to know. 

Why would it be signed. Are message numbers meant to go backwards ?

You wouldn't happen to know the maximum message size ?

In my tests, MakeMsg failes to import more than ~86 kbs. Not sure if this
was a limitation of MakeMsg, which seems to be a 16 bit DOS app. The other
tool I got is MPost but that has a hardcoded limit of 8 kb unless I
recompile from source with the necessary changes.

... ... I just imported a 4.45 mb binkd.log into a Squish area using MsgEd
without any probs. I can read to the last line. 

But MaxED (the Maximus editor) fails after displaying 623 lines (or 37,466 bytes): 
============================================================================ =
...
...
...
[619]  30 Sep 06:29:42 [183] started client #1, id=248
[620]  30 Sep 06:29:42 [224] created M:\mailing\mailer\bt\out\ftn\02c80000.cs y
[621]+ 30 Sep 06:29:42 [224] call to 3:712/0{at}fidonet
[622]  30 Sep 06:29:42 [224] resolving `sysgod.org'...
[623]  30 Sep 06:29:42 [224] trying 218.214.9.232...

C:\tmp>dir test.txt
 Volume in drive C is Local Disk
 Volume Serial Number is 90D6-6C28

 Directory of C:\tmp

15/02/2008  07:24a              37,466 test.txt
               1 File(s)         37,466 bytes
               0 Dir(s)   7,014,924,288 bytes free
============================================================================ =

So it looks like Squish can handle more than 4.5 mb messages. But I don't
know the theoretical limit.

I need to up the int's to floating doubles somewhere in the Maximus source. 

 ML> I'm also unsure what the maximum number of areas is for 
 ML> Squish.

 ML> In the Squish tosser documentation it says the maximum 
 ML> number of areas is limited to memory. So this could be 
 ML> virtually unlimited areas, if using disk swapping.

 SL> Pretty much.  Since each area is its own set of files, any 
 SL> area limits are in the software not the format.

There're also theoretical file system limits, but these are practically
irrelevant. According to wikipedia the maximum files on NTFS is 4 trillion,
and something about VolumeSize / 2^12 inodes for EXT3. EXT2 has a 1.3 x
10^20 per directory.

-+- Msged/386 4.30
 + Origin: ypan.dyndns.org loves Msged... (3:712/104)
---------- Forwarded message End ----------

-+- Msged/386 4.30
 + Origin: ypan.dyndns.org loves Msged... (3:712/104)
---------- Forwarded message End ----------

--- Msged/386 4.30