Terms and Conditions (and User Agreements) should have not character limits

Same, had to provide an external link that opens a new window, and then the user comes back and clicks accept. Not ideal, but works.

Instead of having our terms and condistions written out in the system, we had to use a link to our external system to still allow users the ability to read them.

I agree. We recently had to switch all our courses to have an e-signature as we could not update our T&C without switching.