When you select a cell and click the copy icon, you are copying a Range object, and not just the text. So when you click in the formula bar after clicking A1, you lose the Paste icon because I guess excel cannot handle understanding you want to paste the .Value property into the location that you click at.

So what you should do is click cell A2, then click the formula bar and select the text and THEN click the Copy icon. Then click cell A1 and click in the formula bar and the Paste icon WILL be available to you and you can paste the text you copied.

In addition, I believe Excel uses it's own Clipboard object to store Class objects, and when you click the formula bar, it's using the system's clipboard. Again, this is what I think.