@rayt2, I truly understand how you feel and your frustration about this thing, but so much to read and so little time.
Other than it is a fact that most people would not read long posts, and that around 1,500 seems to be the max one should aim for, or they would lose readers around Hive (speaking from personal experience, my posts in general deteriorated to the point that I almost stopped posting articles and such now due to that).
We do read every single story, and if we allow the stretching of the stories, everyone would be doing it and you can imagine the situation then.

Posting mine was really a mistake and I shouldn't have published it like that, but I had to. 😒

In the end, I don't mind reading a little longer story when it's well written and enjoyable to read even though it would chop off larger portion of time. So don't let this "word limit" ruin your story if you really think shortening it would.