Just in case someone comes across this years afterward like I did, there is a trick to get this to update correctly after pasting the values.

So add a ? before the equals sign in your text string.

Now, just as the OP said, he did a Paste Special and choose Values. Now you should have a bunch of cells with formulas showing in all of them. Select them all and Ctrl+H (Find and Replace) and Replace all your ? signs with nothing. All the cells should update according to the formula.