I also have never
bothered to check out the behaviour.

Good one actually! If anyone knows the whys and wherefores please do chip
in!!!

OTOH... You can always put  the variable  into the watch window. Selecting or
clicking in it so the cursor  is in the name, and hitting Shift F9 will also
give a value but if it's a long string it's sometime tricky to see the whole
thing.