Actually, I have already modified various settings, such as:

# wscons options
options         WSEMUL_VT100            # VT100 / VT220 emulation
options         WS_KERNEL_FG=WSCOL_GREEN
options         WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_PCVT           # emulate some ioctls
options         WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_SYSCONS        # emulate some ioctls
options         WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_USL            # VT handling
options         WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_RAWKBD         # can get raw scancodes
options         WSDISPLAY_DEFAULTSCREENS=4

and
## /etc/rc.conf
wscons=yes

and uncommented font line in /etc/wscons.conf
and added lines for 80x50 as documented and varied 132x50 and vt220

all to no avail.
I tried the various suggestions in this thread haven't succeeded at getting 
it to boot in 80x50 mode.

at boot time it also reports:
wsconscfg: already configured (4 times)

but dmesg says that screen 4 succeeded (?? exceeds Kernel count?@5th)

I have a /dev/ttyE4, but ctrl-alt-F5 is a blank screen and the cursor 
appears to be sized for 80x25

Why can't I overide the runtime config of wscons if I'm root?
Is there some way to just set the default I want when compiling the kernel?

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