Yes, factors absolutely can be a pain in the ass when they're instituted too early in an analysis. It's better to keep them as strings for as long as possible a

Yes, factors absolutely can be a pain in the ass when they're instituted too early in an analysis. It's better to keep them as strings for as long as possible and only convert to factor when you've cleaned up your data. Otherwise, you have to deal with annoying and confusing factor manipulation. The drawback is that character takes up so much space, but these days memory is so bountiful it usually doesn't matter.