Telecommunications is interesting in that everything strives to be backwards compatible and will accommodate the lowest common denominator to connect a call. It's very much like Microsoft Windows, in that backward compatibility is both a strength and a common source of problems. Government mandates don't usually go beyond borders, so carriers have to accommodate international operators.
And any new features or technologies often introduce or expose problems.
When Caller ID was introduced, there was a huge backlash around privacy. Callers were upset about having the number they were calling from being exposed. If a doctor called a patient it could expose his direct or home number instead of the office number. In the age of phone books, a phone number could be associated with an address. The ACLU sued to block Caller ID until it was possible to disabled it.
Because large call centers operated hundreds of numbers and wanted a way for them to all appear as the same business entity. Carriers later implemented ways for these customers to spoof Caller ID so that the carrier wasn't responsible for maintaining it. Carriers connecting calls had to trust the originating carrier's caller ID info as well.
All these requirements allowed for a bad actor to spoof Caller ID and for it to just be trusted.
Carriers use to have star codes you would use for certain features like disabling Caller ID, disabling Call Waiting, and, famously, calling back a number that called you. These are similar to the AT codes you can issue to the modem in your cellphone via the dialer. Kids today will never appreciate REM's Star 69.
When digital cellphones arrived, they presented some odd challenges too like the fact that call information was transmitted digitally to the carrier and not via analog tones. Because number presses on your cellphone didn't equate to analog tones over the line, cellphone users couldn't interact with IVR menu systems (e.g., "Press 1 for English...").
Character limits in SMS messages come from the fact that they occupied the null space in beacon messages transmitted between cell towers and phones. Before MMS was a thing you couldn't send longer messages or if your phone broke them up into chunks, they might be delivered out of order or not at all.