Well... if there is a single @ within quotes and the chars that follow do not represent a valid macro, KiX should just eat the @ and treat the rest as text if NoMacrosInStrings is OFF. If NoMacrosInStrings is ON, then the @ is part of the string but in either case there should be no validation of the macro and no error thrown. Now outside of quotes with proper concatenation, that is another story.

I agree with the "Strict" principle but it should be on by default and sloppy coders should have to explicitly turn it off. That is how most of the SetOption() switches should be, most strict by default.