GIMP Version: 2.10.38
Operating System: Windows
GIMP Experience: Intermediate Level

List any relevant plug-ins or scripts:
G'mic

List any ERROR messages you received:
none

---

I put some text in a text layer, and then made ten copies of it.
I then modified the copies, so that the lowest one in the stack is big and fuzzy, and the top one is thin and eroded, and colored them differently. (No, I don't remember what tools I used for this - that's part of the problem.)

I've done this before, to make 3D-looking looking letters, and the graphic manipulations always strip the text info, making it a graphic layer with no 'text'.
No problem there, that's normal.

But this time, I opened the file and found that all eleven layers were STILL text layers, with editable text, AND all the graphic effects were intact. But editing the text (changing characters or font characteristics), stripped all the graphics processing away, leaving the raw font. All I could do without removing the effects is copy the text for use elsewhere. On the other hand, simply deleting the text info preserved the effects on each layer. But there seemed to be no way to replace the text with different letters but keep the effects.

First question - is this 'normal' but I did something different unknowingly? Can one nondestructively apply effects to text layers? If so, how did I do it?
Second question - if not normal, is it a bug? A known bug?

I believe that in recent versions, when a text layer loses its "text" status, Gimp keeps the text data somewhere, so if you have regrets, you can get back to the text. But it doesn't remember what additional steps where applied between the text and the final version 'beyond the undo stack, but this is not saved in an XCF), so if you go back to editing the text, you lose all this.

Things are/will be somewhat different in 3.0, because you can apply filters on layers with "non-destructive editing", so you can sometimes edit the initial text and keep effects, but this doesn't apply to all filters.

That makes sense. Half-feature.

Too bad it throws away the text on the first edit, though.

There should always be the first text layer at the bottom of the layers list (above the background) unless you merged it with something else - like the drop shadow etc, then you lose the original
To remember what you do on each layer rename the layers 'edit etc'