adding form fields dramatically increases file size

FWIW, I ALWAYS do Save As... every time. I have scores of v2, v3, v4... files in my work folder until I'm done and can delete all the intermediate versions!

I think Acrobat has some issues w/ it, I may call that unreliable or buggy or touchy... 

I have a Word doc, convert it to PDF.   First time in Acrobat, I do Save As Other, Optimized.  And I unembed any fonts there.  That always brings the file size back down.  Yet when I open that file up in Reader, go to Document Properties, Fonts... it always shows some leftover font (for example, Ariel), that never even showed up in the Unembed dialog as a choice when optimizing.  In my Word doc, I have no headers or footers.  I have done a Select All and set a specific font.  So where is Acrobat picking that up.  But that initial optimized version, even so, is ususally pretty small, let's say under 50k, even less if it's a simple one page doc.

Now let's say I make the cardinal sin of adding a form field and changing the Font to one of the non standard ones.  Save As.  There's the hit.  We're at 1mb file size.  Oh that's right, it's dealing with that font thing. Change the font on that form field back to Helvetica.   Go to Save As/Optimized and go to the Font page, there's nothing there to unembed.  I do the save anyway and of course it doesn't change the file size.   It's still huge.  Now I have to start completely over, from scratch.  If I had already done a bunch of edits and adding a bunch of form fields, all that work is gone because I have to start over.  (Or go back to one of my intermediate versions and pick up where I left off... because that's how I've learned to roll in Acrobat!)

I understand if I choose some custom font, it wants to embed it and that will cause the file size to go up.  But managing those fonts, that process, is the issue.  If I choose to not use the font, I should be able to unembed it.  That option is lost.  So yeah, I think it's unreliable.  That's my .02.

OK, I can do that but... what if I need the font to match what the rest of the document is (and it's not Helvetica)? Since the rest of the text on the converted doc is all the same font as the form field textbox I was adding, I'm not sure I follow why that would cause such a dramatic change in file size.