I guess the next question might be then, can the upper limit for the number of potential matches be found, if no restrictions are placed on the input sequence?

I guess the next question might be then, can the upper limit for the number of potential matches be found, if no restrictions are placed on the input sequence? Without thinking the problem through (about to sleep) I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is easily proven to be exponential (aka a firm "nope") but math can be unintuitive at times so I thought I'd ask anyway. I ask because, if the maximum number of potential matches isn't exponential (or is at least <= 3 digits long), it might be plausible to read through the number of matches to find "interesting" (elegant-looking) ones.