Simulation Distance in Realms keeps reverting to 4 chunks

This issue is extremely frustrating. I exported my realm just to make sure that I had the simulation distance all the way up and it's set to 4. So I upped it to max, which I think was 12... and didn't notice any difference in game. I exported the world once more to check the simulation distance and it was back at 4. I'm playing on Windows 10 Bedrock Edition. Why on earth won't the simulation distance go up for realms? 4 is so tiny that half of everything I make stops working...

Check out the attached pictures. You can see a pig vanish just a few steps back, and it's not even that far. The other pictures depict the point at which the chickens vanish from my chicken farm. My chicken farm is the Red acacia building in the distance. The stone brick block on the ground represents the spot at which they phase out. That means in order for my farms to work I have to be between that block and the farm. This is actually an incredibly tiny area, and it's really frustrating.

Can we have an official mojang response on this? What's going on here? Am I doing something wrong?

Still no official word on this. I wish they'd have some sort of indicator on the realms info and settings page for what the simulation distance was set to. Better yet, have the realm owner be able to set the distance without having to go through the rigmarole of having to download a copy of the realm, change the settings, and upload the changed copy. I'm too afraid of having a repeat of the problem with losing all my stuff and levels and restarting at spawn to ever be comfortable changing settings this way.

The most frustrating thing about this is that conduits and beacons have a very restricted range and it completely messes up my design for bases. It also is inconvenient for automated processes such as farms, furnaces, or other time based tasks.

Edit: I've done some detailed testing and Realms have a max loading of +-3 chunks from you present chunk. This means that you have 63 blocks on average in any one direction (X or Z). The loading area is a square so you can be 3 chunks in both X and Z and it'll still load.
This is woefully inadequate Such a tiny area is useless past early game. Considering that a single farm is a 9x9 around a single water bucket. Your only option in Bedrock right now it vertical buildup. This of course is almost useless in Iron farms as you need sky to make villages. Yes there are designs but vertical is not survival friendly...

FYI if you have MS excel you can use the following formula to get the distance between two coordinates in chunks: =((FLOOR(<coord1>,16)) - (FLOOR(<coord2>,16)))/16
Just replace the coordinate with the block coordinate X1, X2 Run it again for Z1, Z2. If the answer is >3 or <-3 that block isn't loaded.

Edit: After spending 3 hours building a massive test track with minecarts I can say I've got the final realm loading area figured out. Apparently they are doing a weird radius for loading. It's not a true radius though. It loads 4 chunks in X and Z direction +1!X and 1!Z chunk on either side. Then for 3 chunks in the X and Z + 2!X and 2!Z).
I'll upload a image to demonstrate.