(nods) I've been using Voice for a while as well, but only in the capacity of having it transcribe my voicemails (or fail to do so). When I first set it up, I had only a non-jailbroken phone on AT&T's service, which precluded me from using it for anything but a call forwarding service. Having my phone dial out from my Google Voice number wasn't possible, if I remember correctly (as the application was blocked), and I was reticent about using the service's calling feature if I wasn't in an area that was data-capable. The same would be for sending/receiving texts. There's also that if I were to "receive" texts-proper using the Voice number, there would still be inbound texts that would be counted towards my monthly limit.

Also, it would have been a pain in the ass to explain why I had two phone numbers.

Such is why I never went the "full-featured" route, though I would have loved to have an audio record of all of my phone calls.

Thinking further, either I'm not aware of some component of texting, but there is no way to maintain a blocked/unblocked list for texts. I have yet to see a system that prevents unsolicited texts, and also have those texts received not count for a monthly limit. Something IM has going for it, at least.

Welcome to idkfa.