The thing I have found is this...

SET FIXED OFF and SET FIXED ON make no difference to this whatsoever.

The help says this:
ON
Uses the SET DECIMALS setting to determine the number of decimal places displayed in results. The default number of decimal places is 2.
OFF
(Default) Allows the number of decimal places displayed in results to depend on the specific constants, variables, and operators used in a numeric expression. The contents of fields are displayed with the declared number of decimal places.

I would have expected that with SET FIXED OFF, I would not get this:

? VAL('1.615')
1.62

I am expecting 1.615 as the answer.

Why do these things always go wrong when there are a million and one other things to fix?

Simon