Please note: This is NOT a "solution". I never found any. It is more my own thoughts on PS text sizing, compound scaling, and the issues that may arise from user error, bad Photoshop programming, and/or the total lack of documentation on PS text sizing. I encourage you to skip this comment if it doesn't meet your interests.
Having the same problem with text sizing with PS CS5 and the last CS6 release (almost a year), and having reviewing all of the issues noted here, I have done tests of my own to better understand the issues affecting text sizing. My findings suggest there is no single solution that will consistently work. The problem is a combination of obtuse and non-intuitive design, problematic compound scaling, bad GUI design and coding, and a dearth of any documented behaviors to expect. The fiasco of Light Room is a good example 😉
A lot of the problems stem from the way PS presents text who's visual size is based on many hierarchical layers of sizing and re-scaling. The font dialog starts the sizing with its point size, then adds several scaling adjustments for width, height, and others. Add to that, the scaling of its containers - starting with its 1st parental object, its text box (for paragraph, not point, text). The text box then sits within a layer which may have hidden internal scaling. The layer might then (optionally) sit within a Smart Object which has its own scale. Last, but not least, that compounded and scaled tree of objects sits within the over all document which is then scaled for printing and separately for the PS interface (what you see on screen).
A 12 point text in an 8" x 10" document set to 300dpi for printing results in a bitmap that is 2400 x 3000 pixels. A document meant for screen presentation only at 72 dpi has a bitmap size of 576 x 729 pixels which, if printed at 8" x 10", would look terrible with excessive pixelization. But, in both cases, the text "should" appear the same size within PS since you wold zoomed zoom each document the same way - to fill the screen the same way.
The dpi of your screen should not be confused with the dpi of your image. The dpi of your image is nothing more than a comment or hint to any program or printer that handles the image. It simply tells the app or device how to scale the final size. It does not affect the screen sizing if one assumes the document is zoomed to fill the screen. Print shops always ask that documents be sent with the dpi "hint" set to 240. 300, 600, 1200, or more, depending on the required quality of final print. Digital images of artwork to be printed by the most expensive processes may require 2400 dpi. So, by setting that dpi printing "hint", PS knows to resize your new document to the proper pixel size so that, when printed, the output will correctly fill the output size, as intended, and has nothing to do with the sizing you see on your screen since you zoom the image to always fill your screen.
The final scaling and size of text on the screen is the result of an elaborate combination of the text dialogue's point size and distortion settings coupled with the scalings of its multiple parent containers. Bad design and programming can easily result in the miscalculation of all those combined scalings. For example, if you simply resize a text box to 200% without first entering text mode and clicking within the text, the text will be scaled to 200% making 12 points text become 24 points. That is what "should" happen if the coding was good. The text dialog "should" also be updated to show 24 points. However, PS doesn't always do that, either. Those are just some of the bugs everyone are seeing.
Things get worse if you change the dpi of the main document or the dpi of a container within the main document. It then further degrades if you used smart objects because they are master containers containing other sub-containers (layers, text boxes, e.g.) which has its own scaling factor that is applied to all the sub-containers further re-scaling the existing scale factors of the contained objects.
This is all basic - though tedious - graphics programming and it is disappointing how Adobe has not handled it very well - let alone documented the actions to expect which would mean they'd really have to code it right, ha!. Once you have a complex document that's gone awry, it can be very tedious and painful to undo the damage of one or more improper compound scalings.
The general rule of thumb I apply in "attempting" to fix such sizing errors is to closely exam the chain of custody of the text. That is, the bounding box, the layer, any Smart Objects, and the document.
Although my last text sizing problem turned out to be my own error, it demonstrated that there are several compound scalings that effect the visual size as presented on the screen and how PS can get confused if the coding is not pristine - which it certainly is NOT! In my case, it was my misuse of Smart Objects. I was designing a brochure page with 4 different equal-sized scenes, each with a main image layer sitting on a framing matte layer, and a 3rd layer for a text caption below it all. So, for easier placements, I created 4 Smart Object of those 3 layers for scene. However, somehow, the imagery for the 4th group ended up about 25% larger than the other 3. It completely escaped my notice because I created them separately with no obvious flag as to it being a bit larger. So, when I placed the object, I had to scale it down to fit its area by about 25%. That's something we often do without thinking at the 11th hour to "the final tweak".
When I was done, I was baffled. The caption of the 4th scene was smaller than the rest. With little time left, I did as most, I adjusted the text size to make it 'look" right. So, whereas the other scenes has 12 point captions, I had to change the text size of the 4th Smart Object to about 15 points making the end re-scaled result "appear" as the other 12 point captions.
Once I found my error, I exploded the 4th Smart Object, adjusted its graphics to the same dimensions as the other 3, and reset the text size back to 12 points. I then updated the Smart Object and it placed just like the others and, voila, the text of all 4 captions looked almost identical. I say "almost" because PS has other graphics errors as well. It does not present graphics - especially text - evenly across the screen. It tends to pixel alignment issues as you progress across the screen so identical text appearing at the top and bottom of the screen will appear every so slightly different do to faulty pixel alignment algorithms.
So, although this diatribe was an example of a user error, it think it may help to demonstrate how there are many compound scalings that occur within a PS document that are not so obvious or intuitive. The part about "bad coding" is where PS often does not reveal, let alone allow you to undo, compound scalings. As noted earlier, a piece of paragraph text in a PS document is an object that resides in a parent object (text box) that resides in a parent object (layer) that resides within a parent object (document). Add Smart Objects and linked layers to the mix and you can see that there are many places where additive scaling errors can easily occur with the slightest error in coding.
One of the techniques I used to research where the sizing went awry is to copy a couple of layers that don't appear the same to a new document large enough to hold both. This eliminates all variables and allows you to view the objects side by side for close analysis. When I did that - copy a "good" Smart Object and the problematic one - the difference in sizing was immediately apparent.
You can use the same technique to copy and visually any objects - such as the text boxes many here are having trouble with. If they appear different, then you know there is something amiss with the text box itself. If they appear the same, then you know for sure, the problem lies within the main document.
I am sorry for the length of this post but hope that it offered some helpful insight.
Xor42
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