Following up on this as different behaviour now appears to be taking place after NO changes at all on my end. Push notifications now only ever badge with 1, regardless of how many have come through. If/when I clear the badge, the next time a notification comes through, it is 1. Apple, please advise if this was an intended change (band-aid) on this issue?

Thank you for your comments @deeje . I'm curious about your mention regarding to "serious consideration to moderation". Would anything be different than it would when moderating on any other backend using a public database? I.e Firebase, AWS etc...?