I wouldn't call it an overreaction at all - I think it's 100% understandable and valid. I just wanted to throw my two cents in as someone who read the comics first and kind of appreciated how that played out - although I really liked the changes made for the movie.
I don't think there's a clear picture of how Booker and Achilles' time in Andy's life shake out, only that knowing it was the Revolutionary War and not the Civil War makes it a lot more complicated. :D
So...just talking out loud, if we go off how the story looks on the surface and also assume Achilles was among the first sent to Australia on penal transportation, we could say that he and Andy met in the late 1780s and he was born in the latter half of the 1750s?
I think there are at least three options here. As you say, they could have split up before 1812 and Achilles was a lot older than thirty when they met. A real possibility story-wise, but it would be a misstep in the art considering how young he looks right when Andy is saying how he wasn't even thirty when he landed in Australia. A second option would be that they split up before 1812 and Achilles was a lot younger than he looked when Andy left. He lived a hard life and that could put a lot of lines on your face back then, but again, that would be a misstep in the art considering we see him aging in stages that suggest a lot of years in between rather than a sudden decline.
The third I can think of is pure speculation, but: the fact that Nile namedrops that portrait as a possible Pickersgill makes me wonder if finding Booker could have taken place in the middle of Andy and Achilles' relationship, and if Andy and Achilles could have possibly travelled back once to Europe together around 1812. They sail back to England, she or they go to France to meet Booker, and somewhere in there they get their portrait painted by Pickersgill who probably would have been in London at the time. Achilles would have been in his mid to late 50s in 1812, which lines up with how he looks in the portrait: partially greyed and older, but not the white-haired elderly man we see him as later on. Maybe Nicky and Joe could have done the legwork on tracking Booker down, sent word to Andy who came to meet him, and then Andy actually went back to Australia with the intention of seeing through Achilles' life with him (which could have then influenced Booker to stay in his own family's life).
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I don't think there's a clear picture of how Booker and Achilles' time in Andy's life shake out, only that knowing it was the Revolutionary War and not the Civil War makes it a lot more complicated. :D
So...just talking out loud, if we go off how the story looks on the surface and also assume Achilles was among the first sent to Australia on penal transportation, we could say that he and Andy met in the late 1780s and he was born in the latter half of the 1750s?
I think there are at least three options here. As you say, they could have split up before 1812 and Achilles was a lot older than thirty when they met. A real possibility story-wise, but it would be a misstep in the art considering how young he looks right when Andy is saying how he wasn't even thirty when he landed in Australia. A second option would be that they split up before 1812 and Achilles was a lot younger than he looked when Andy left. He lived a hard life and that could put a lot of lines on your face back then, but again, that would be a misstep in the art considering we see him aging in stages that suggest a lot of years in between rather than a sudden decline.
The third I can think of is pure speculation, but: the fact that Nile namedrops that portrait as a possible Pickersgill makes me wonder if finding Booker could have taken place in the middle of Andy and Achilles' relationship, and if Andy and Achilles could have possibly travelled back once to Europe together around 1812. They sail back to England, she or they go to France to meet Booker, and somewhere in there they get their portrait painted by Pickersgill who probably would have been in London at the time. Achilles would have been in his mid to late 50s in 1812, which lines up with how he looks in the portrait: partially greyed and older, but not the white-haired elderly man we see him as later on. Maybe Nicky and Joe could have done the legwork on tracking Booker down, sent word to Andy who came to meet him, and then Andy actually went back to Australia with the intention of seeing through Achilles' life with him (which could have then influenced Booker to stay in his own family's life).