Novella Versus the Novel - Which Route is Really Appropriate?

This question has haunted many an author through the ages.  What do you do when you set out to write a novel, and well you end up under the so-called word length of a novel, and into the nightmarish region of the novella.  The other question of course, is what happens when you write that novel and find out not only have you written 220 000 words, but shit man, this could be 2 books.  I have run into these issues, as have other authors.  So to return to some technical shit, let's look at these.
The first time I ever ran headlong into a novella was with Stephen King's Different Seasons.  If memory serves me correctly, it was he that talked about novellas. Of course without the internet at the time I read it, all I had was what he said.   But he raised an issue that to some degree has affected me with respect to writing.  I know his solution was to take these novellas and publish them as a collection, thereby getting the length of a novel.  Now nowhere, to date, have I found a definition of a novella with respect to word length, it all just comes down to you look at it and you know it is that forbidden beauty that all seem to fear.
Me, I don't fear it, in fact I embrace it.  Why you might ask?  It solves issues for me quite readily to deal with a novella, and just go look on Amazon at many books:  many are in fact novellas, because with the advent of electronic publications, no one fears it as much as they did in print.  It was kind of silly to put a novella into print (I do this, and with short stories too, but you have to do a special order with me).
Now where has the novella been used with me?  Well let's look at the Anthology of the Guardians series.  They range from short story into that novella range once again, and they are great for selling cheap as electronic publications.   But even if I collapse all 5 works into one book, it is just a bloated novella.  So it allows me to group together a group of stories that otherwise would have to wait for more and gets more of my stories out in a timely fashion.
Triumvirate, Book 2 of the Triumvirate Chronicles is a whole other beast.  The first novel I ever wrote came in at 220 000 words.  As I am preparing it for release later this year, I found it too long.  So I have removed the front story to it (sneak preview coming soon, oh yeah baby), and will release it as a novella, a prequel to Triumvirate (its working title is Conquest and Liberation).  It is not a formal entry, but rather a story cleaning up loose ends, introducing the true antagonist (yeah slipped that by the readers, if you don't know, go buy the book) and setting up for the events that occur in Book 2.  This solved my problem nicely for book length and trying to keep cost down.
So in the new age of writing, there really isn't much to fear with novellas, and sometimes because they are shorter, they get a little more air play and can get more people interested in your writing.  And all of this is made possible with ebooks.  Now this doesn't mean that in the areas I have concentrated on novellas won't ever be full novels, rather it allows me to concentrate novels in one area, while still giving you, the reader, more material in other parts of my timeline.

Well if these guys can do it before ebooks, so can I!!