In an array with minOccurs not mentioned (defaults to 1), and maxOccurs='unbounded' with dfdl:occursCountKind='implicit', we are happily creating zero elements. It should fail if it can't get 1 element.

dfdl:occursCountKind='implicit' means that it is within minOccurs and maxOccurs instances.

This is very mystifying to new naive users (and I fell into this trap myself too a lot when using occursCountKind='parsed', which always accepts zero instances regardless of minOccurs.)