return class; = [type Function] ?

[Edit: sorry about all the italics and bolds. i really need to get some sort of style sheet for actionscript code]
[Edit 2: and i got one. have to do some color changes. IG: Syntax Hiliter]
i found something i don’t quite understand today (not that much of a shock) when trying to make a CharacterManager class to control the registration and reference of classes extending a Character class. In short, when i make a new character that a user can use, i just want to create a new class that extends the Character class, go into my main class register it and drop the new character movieclip into the library, brush off my hands give a little grunt and call it a day.
Now i found this odd, but technically i know very little, so i was hoping someone out there might be able to explain it to me.
The way i want this to work is when i register a new character, i say something like this:

__characterManager.registerCharacterClass(MyNewCharacterClass, “class name”);

- where __characterManager is the singleton

….(in Character Manager)
[as]
public function registerCharacterClass(classToAdd, classNameStr)
{
__classList[ classNameStr ] = classToAdd;
}
[/as]

- and then when i want to retrive that class when i create a new character i say:

(1)
[as]
Application.addCharacter(”class name”, “symbol linkage id”, “instance name”);
[/as]
(2)
[as]
function addCharacter(classNameStr, clipID, name)
{

var characterClass:Character =

characterManager.getCharacterClassByName(classNameStr);

var character:Character = characterClass.create(clipID, name);
}
[/as]
- what i had in the CharacterManager class before i found the reason why i’m asking this question is this:
[as]
public function getCharacterClassByName(classNameStr):Character
{
return __classList[ classNameStr ];
}
[/as]

- but that always returned the [type Function]- never a reference to the class i was trying to get.
So i peeked into the CommandTemplate class within the ariaware package, and noticed how they did it.
Using this:

return new __classList[ classNameStr]();

Now this makes sense to me, since when you create an instance of a class you use new most of the time. But i guess i’m wondering why it would return [type Function] before, and not even [object Object], or something else. and if this is always true, can i not create a Singleton from here, or should i make a CharacterSingletonManager class and return __classList[ classNameStr].getInstance(); ?
The answer is probably simple and can be summed up in one line, and here i write a novel out of a question.. but oh well.