As someone who regularly has to write SQL in 7 different dialects I much prefer VARCHAR to TEXT as the former is handled much more consistently across platforms

As someone who regularly has to write SQL in 7 different dialects I much prefer VARCHAR to TEXT as the former is handled much more consistently across platforms. A TEXT column in MS SQL Server is an entirely different proposition to a VARCHAR column. VARCHAR on the other hand is treated with relative similarity between most of the systems I regularly use. Additionally, one of the key benefits of more explicit datatypes is documentation. Knowing that a column is 30 characters wide is useful information to have at hand (without having to check check constraints) and often reflects a business rule. Where joins have to be performed on character columns it also helps to know if both sides of the join are both (say) CHAR(8). If every text column is TEXT then that's much less clear. Check constraints help but you don't always know if they've been applied to all current data (some platforms allow for constraints to ignore current data). If I know a column is VARCHAR(50) then I am 100% certain that there will be no value longer than 50 in it.