Correct, my apologies for not being clear. But to confirm, the SPSP word limit setting is not being applied to the standard Excerpt box.
I was using that instead of the auto-excerpts becasue the Visual Composer shortcodes were getting pulled (although that part was entirely expected behavior).
I do have this install up and running on a live environment if that helps: https://ventureindustriesonline.com/all-add-ons. Each of those excerpts should only be displaying 72 words. It’s also worth pointing out that I did update this install to WP 4.9.