Too add a foot note to this discussion for now.
what has clarified to me is that there is a choice,
simple LCD displays , alpha numeric, easy to drive from the arduino,
limited to 40 by 4 characters, with a few custom characters
complex LCD displays, pixel addressable, more interesting to drive form the arduino
from small phone size to living room tv's
no market for big, simple alpha numeric LCD's,
which having looked around I can understand.