Troubles with #theme_wrappers function for a search form: form returning empty

Hello Gurus,
I'm creating a custom theme and need to heavily alter the search block form. I've done a lot of digging before posting here, and so far I can call a function that will wrap my form a bit differently (

to
...

).

The challenge is that my custom function is returning an empty string or isn't being accepted or is behaving badly in general. I could simply return "HELLO" and nothing will show on the site. I know that my function is being called and I can print_r() the $variables. I just don't see what is being returned there.

/**
 * hook_theme() 
 */

function ss30_theme($existing, $type, $theme, $path) {
  return array(
	'ss30_search_block_form' => array(
      'variables' => array('links' => array(), 'attributes' => array(), 'type' => NULL),
    ),
  );
}

/**
 * hook_form_alter() 
 */

//alter forms
function ss30_form_alter(&$form, &$form_state, $form_id) {
	if($form_id == 'search_block_form') {
		$form['#theme_wrappers'] = array(0 => 'ss30_search_block_form');
	}
}

//get rid of the extra <div></div> right after the start and end of <form></form>
//taken from: https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/includes!form.inc/function/theme_form/7
function ss30_search_block_form($variables) {
  //die('made it this far...');
  $element = $variables['element'];
  if (isset($element['#action'])) {
    $element['#attributes']['action'] = drupal_strip_dangerous_protocols($element['#action']);
  }
  //element_set_attributes($element, array('method', 'id')); //this is generating an error, will revisit later...
  if (empty($element['#attributes']['accept-charset'])) {
    $element['#attributes']['accept-charset'] = "UTF-8";
  }
  return '<form' . drupal_attributes($element['#attributes']) . '>' . $element['#children'] . '</form>';
}

Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong? My guess is that ss30_theme() is set incorrectly somehow?

Thanks for the nudge in the right direction in advance. :D

Best regards,