The data cache will mask those problems because it will always do 32-bit accesses. Without the cache (or if you do an access by bypassing the cache) all 8-bit writes will fail. I guess that 8-bit accesses can happen in I/O functions, but also possibly in all string-manipulating functions, so it could be a problem.
According to this message by dsl (
http://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=123683&postcount=4), you will also run into problems with 16-bit accesses if you don't connect the byte enable lines, so you should keep the data cache for now, and avoid any cache bypassing.