Or genetics determine "your beard will be this long. Any more and the individual hairs will fall out." That could just be me combing it out a bit too hard though, that and hard water is brutal on all my hair...
Shaving can be tedious and getting hair in my mouth is the worst. I have a pretty good medium going now, keeping my "mouth perimeter" hairs shorter with a trimmer and wet shaving my neck with a DE and shave brush. Less annoying and kinda fun.