The problem had nothing to do with long text.
To make the table display a different background depending on the users online status, i placed the user status template variable inside the class attribute of the tr tag surrounding the whole user area in the postbit. Then replaced the online and offline templates with status_online and status_offline respectively, then simply styled those classes with a different background image.
I assumed the away status didn't show up in the postbit, and simply forgot to edit the template. The default template returned HTML and broke out of the tr tag above, which is why some plaintext html was shown.
When I get back onto the computer, I just need to make a separate background for 'away' and it'll be done.