Performance issues with ModelUtils._coerce and coerceArray

Describe the bug

The way ModelUtils._coerce uses coerceArray is inefficient, and is causing it to show up as 20% of my application's CPU usage in profiler runs under a create heavy workload.

The problem code is this in juggler:

    try {
      // Coerce val into an array if it resembles an array-like object
      val = coerceArray(val);
    } catch (e) {
      // NOOP when not coercable into an array.
    }

Throwing and catching an error is much more expensive than returning a value, and nearly every call to _coerce hits this try/throw/catch path.

A variant of coerceArray that doesn't throw, but instead returns [arrayVal | undefined, coerced: boolean] I think would fix the performance problem here.

Logs

No response

Additional information

No response

Reproduction

design issue

Start in lib/model-utils.js around lines 498-503, where ModelUtils._coerce calls coerceArray inside the try/catch path. Review coerceArray's behavior and the create-heavy workload described in the issue, then verify that coercion preserves existing behavior without the repeated exception cost and confirm the improvement with profiling.