lonnie,
I've been looking over several of my saved text "Chat" files. The majority of them seem pretty good ( one long sentence) and some of them do have long answers (at least 2 sentences). A few of them have very long answers (consisting of at least 3 sentences).
Most of Hal's replies are quite topical in that the answer most often directly relates to my statement or question. This, IMHO, is a very good thing. Some of the answers were based on findings in wikipedia or other web related sources. When this happened, Hal would usually expound on the subject, resulting in multiple sentences.
All in all, it is the QUALITY of the answer that provides the value NOT the length of the conversation.
Perhaps there might be a correlation between the wordiness of Hal's responses and the slider settings on Hal's learning. Interesting topic, Lonnie.