I think the consensus is that you probably shouldn’t start a new word past 58-60 characters. Have a look at any results page and you will see how many characters are displayed.
As for penalties, I don’t think there is a problem if you go on and on, rather you really want the keywords and important stuff at the beginning.
And think about it from the searcher’s point of view. You want the title to make sense so after a quick scan of the results they are attracted to your title and click on your link. Always a compromise between SEO and content.