Lambda Function returning multiple items

OK so I think I found the 'problem' which if I'm right is very concerning to me.  Here is the Lambda function:

=LAMBDA(val, range, [min_letters],
    LET(m_l, IF(ISOMITTED(min_letters), 2, min_letters),
        IF(m_l < LEN(val),
           LET(nFind, nearmatches2(val, range, m_l + 1),
               IF(ROWS(nFind) > 1,
                  nFind,
                  IF(nFind <> 0,
                     nFind,
                     FILTER(range,
                            IFERROR(SEARCH(LEFT(val, m_l), range), 0),
                            0)
                    )
                 )
              ),
           FILTER(range, IFERROR(SEARCH(val, range), 0), 0)
           )
       )
)

so basically it will start by recursively calling itself until it reaches the full length of the 'val' parameter (IF statement on line 3 is TRUE so inside the LET on line 4 it calls itself)

Then the full length search of 'val' in 'range' happens and returns the list of values OR 0

The recursive calls then unroll and if 1 or more values were previously found then just return them otherwise do another FILTER at the level of characters.

Notice that I 1st check IF the returned value ('nFind') has more than 1 row (i.e. an array) so if so it shouldn't go any further

BUT what I'm finding is that the final answer IS becoming an array based on the number of times the smallest character set for 'val' is found.  So if I initially set min_letters to 3 and there are 5 results with those initial 3 characters but the full 'val' is found 1x it will return that correct value 5x.

This means (to me) that inside this Lambda the IF statement is acting like a function and not an operator and even though the result was true it is still evaluating the false condition and forcing that variable to be an 'n' length array.  I already posted about this behavior with the IFS() function learned the difference between IF and IFS and some other functions (thank you JoeUser2004 ) but apparently switching back to the IF() isn't necessarily the solution either.