Large pillars of stalactites don't fall when the block above is removed

Can confirm.

Can also confirm.

It also somehow created individual floating dripstone tips that, when another was placed beneath, immediately dropped the dripstone beneath it without falling with it. this should be a bug report on it's own, but since this is a step on the way to this bug, imma comment here first. gotta capture evidence. repeat the experience 'n all that

rephrasing: the long dripstone pillar can be broken further down, but it leaves the broken ones left behind on top untouched

It's when there's more then 50 of them above each other.
it can be easily fixed by changing this in the code: (Code Analysis)

net.minecraft.world.level.block.PointedDripstoneBlock.java

private static BlockPos findTip(BlockState lvt0, LevelAccessor lvt1, BlockPos lvt2) {
      ...
      for(int i = 0; i < 50; ++i) {...}
      return null;
   }

to

private static BlockPos findTip(BlockState lvt0, LevelAccessor lvt1, BlockPos lvt2) {
      ...
      for(int i = 0; i < 255; ++i) {...}
      return null;
   }

Same change needs to be done in the findRootBlock() function