Al --

The real pitfall in your suggestion is not the original entry of the value, but the re-entry.

Excel is smart enough to remember that you entered a leading quote mark when you go back to a field.

Property Window and PEMEditor can store nothing but the value, which means that they cannot remember whether a leading quote mark was entered.

Thus, on re-entry of a value, you'd either always lose the original quote (oops!) or always have a leading quote (oops!).