“in practice FDIC usually will bail out the full balances even over the nominal limit”

That’s not true. It takes the systematic risk exemption and agreement between the fdic/fed reserve board and the president to make that happen. I think it’s happened like 4 times out of the thousands of bank bailouts that have happened.

There are other cases where the acquiring bank took on uninsured funds (like jpmc did for first republic) but in that case your gamble is that the other depositors on the banks balance sheet are desireable to the acquirer. Which presumably isn’t the case for your hypothetical max risk run bank.

But didn't it technically not even apply at the end of the day for SVB? They sold the bank to another bank, which is what usually happens, and that other bank assumed all its deposits and liabilities. The FDIC didn't have to pay out any deposits and thus the limit didn't come into play.