Is it safe to use up all the words available in a word count limit when submitting a journal article? Let's say that a journal article submission wordcount limit is 10,000 words. Does this mean that only really awesome or important submissions should be over 9,500 words? Or any article can be at 9,999 without predisposing the editors against it?
If you have 9,000 words, do not try to add new words only to get closer to the limit.

If you have 9,999 words, do not remove words merely to get further from the limit.

Submit no more than 10,000 words unless you ask permission (sometimes there is flexibility in the word count, sometimes not).



In summary, use the limit as given and don't concern yourself with gaming the system beyond that.

These sorts of strategies and games might have a place in standardized testing but they don't have much place in research.