Deserializing an array within a bean -- problem

When getting the results from a webservice call, if the flex client receives a bean that contains an array of length 0, that array appears to be deserializing improperly. I would expect it to deserialize to an ArrayCollection of length 0 but what I see is:

In Flex 2.0.1hotfix3, the ArrayCollection is null.

In Flex 3:
If the array is of an arbitrary bean, the ArrayCollection is length 1, first element is null.
If the array is of ints, the ArrayCollection is length 1, first element is NaN.
If the array is of booleans,the ArrayCollection is length 1, first element is false.

Is there something that I'm missing, or has someone determined a way around this issue?

(Note that this is an array *within* a bean. If the webservice call returns a 0-length array *not* in a bean, the deserialized ArrayCollection is of length 0, which is what I would expect)

Thank you.