I feel your pain, pdb1. I don't like the fact that once you go over that 255 count, you can't message these friends, you can't see them on your status friends page, and you can't remove them from your friends list (unless you get them into the 255 count of friends).
I can't tell you the number of times I've gone through my friends list to get the count down to 255. Once, I picked up a "poster collector" that kept bugging me to play anytime I would show up. I played with this guy once ... and with the innuendo he was throwing around, that was enough. Anyway, to get him off my list, I had to remove 60 old friends, just to get rid of him.
WGT ... this is an issue you really do need to address ... either limit a person's friends to 255 or remove that stupid friend counter you have on your system! (preferably the latter).