When renaming nodes it gets a bit painful when it doesn't expand the display to show what I'm writing. I know it's a small thing, but it is annoying, is there any setting to change that?

Not initially, however, after you type a long name and confirm by pressing enter the text field does expand to a larger state to encompass the new length the next time you edit the name.

I find the text field a bit annoying, myself. I am in the habit of clicking in the text field, then pressing CTRL-A, then start typing. Otherwise I end up with text in the middle of old text.

This behavior is new to Houdini 14 or maybe one of the newer builds, and I agree that it very annoying. That and the middle mouse stick.