Given that the answer to my above question is apparently “No”, I’ve settled on the following workaround to this Calc feature (which I find to be obnoxious, given its results):
At Tools > Options > Calc > General, select “Press Enter to switch to edit mode”. Then one trains themselves to be in the habit of always entering edit mode by pressing Enter, and always exiting edit mode by pressing Enter (before one clicks to another cell).
There are other ways to enter and exit edit mode, but, to me, the above seems the most straightforward and easiest to remember (and learn to do habitually).
Note that one probably does not want to also have checked “Press Enter to move selection”, given the manner in which these two options interact.
I also note that, while Excel also has a “click to other cell to insert cell reference” feature, Excel’s implementation of this feature is a bit more sophisticated than that of Calc. In Excel, when editing a formula, the cell reference is only inserted if, in fact, given the then location of the insertion point, it then makes syntactical sense to enter a cell reference at that location in the formula. Otherwise, clicking into another cell automatically selects that cell and turns off edit mode (and does not affect the previously edited formula). (Which is probably why, over the years, after editing a formula to my satisfaction, I’ve been able to develop the habit of simply clicking to another cell and simultaneously (a) exiting edit mode, and (b) selecting the other cell.)
Given Calc’s operational functionality, I need to re-train my habitual way of doing things.
