"required" string showing multiple times below module table

Could it be to do with the 'suffix' not being part of the 'content' and hence not counted as actual output in the if statement?

line 577+ in form.inc...

if (!$content) {
  foreach (element_children($elements) as $key) {
    $content .= form_render($elements[$key]);
  }
}

could become

if (!$content) {
  foreach (element_children($elements) as $key) {
    if(!$elements[$key][suffix] && !$elements[$key][prefix]) {
      $content .= form_render($elements[$key]);
    }
  }
}

... works, but is this the best way/what we're trying to do?

Okay, my first ever go at making a patch. here it is. let me know if i've done anything wrong.

The problem is that when the final form_render is called, we take care of not rendering the elements again but the prefix and suffix is not checked for this. See the simple fix in the patch.

Also included is a minor fix to make code more elegant.