iOS 26 Restoring YEARS of deleted messages!

This is beyond “disenchantment”.. TOTAL frustration in 2 Key Ways:

1. It will take DAYS to manually delete AGAIN, messages that have reappeared in iOS 26 that had long been deleted years ago (I’m seeing 4 years at least of old texts with various, not all, contacts returned in iMessages). Is there a fix to save this time?
2. What does this reveal? What are the implications that these “deleted” messages are STILL in circulation (local on device, iCloud server) when the user clearly intended to delete them YEARS ago? (I researched beta testers from a few months ago discussing this experience). It’s not novel to me. I need some answers here.

Thank you in advance.