Lists produced by LIST() seem to be inferior to list columns

[Kirk_Masden]

I use the following expression to convert text with spaces and/or commas into lists where the spaces and commas both function as separators (that is, are all converted to " , "):

list(substitute(substitute([Tags],","," , “),” “,” , "))

This expression converts the following kind of user generated text

donyuen money extra,spaces more money

into the following kind of list

donyuen , money , , , extra , , , spaces , more , money

So far, so good. Now for the problem: Expressions that modify lists do not work directly on this expression. So, for example,

unique(list(substitute(substitute([Tags],","," , “),” “,” , ")))

does not eliminate the second use of “money” and

sort(list(substitute(substitute([Tags],","," , “),” “,” , ")))

doesn’t sort.

However, if the same expression, that is

list(substitute(substitute([Tags],","," , “),” “,” , "))

is used by itself in a “list” column called “Tags to list” then

unique([Tags to list])

properly produces

donyuen , money , , extra , , , spaces , more

and

sort(unique([Tags to list]))

produces

, , , , donyuen , extra , money , money , more , spaces

Could LIST() be made to be truly equivalent to a list column?

P.S. I would like users to be able to tag items so that they can then choose from a list of tags to display all items with that tag in a slice. So, users need to be able to type in tags but I don’t expect them to always obey formatting rules. I want all spaces and commas to be treated as separators for this reason.