I hate to nitpick, but the mean/median/mode problem seems to have infiltrated into your research regarding the average English word length. In the average modern English corpus assembled for language study (ie: newspapers, AP articles, bestselling books), the average English word is about 5 letters. I know that when calculating how many words a person can type per minute, they use the measure of 5 characters and a space as a word.

This automated survey of international literature archives suggests 5.10 letters per word in English.