An 7.2-7.5 Speculation

[Anonymoose]

As of today, I suspect the 30-year time-skip was solely the "oscillating difference in relative time passage between shards" invoked in 5.0 to give the history of the First some time to develop an interesting status quo before we got there trying to squeeze an entire expansion of content out of it. Re-invoking that lore allowed Zoraal Ja to reappear immediately after the rite of succession with 30 years of prep already done, allowing the story to continue at a brisk pace.

As for the rest, I'm on a sort of "wait and see" pause. The Alexander we know was a hulk of a Sharlayan defense mechanism with a primal summoned into its core for no real reason beyond that it seemed the the easiest and most effective way for Quickthinx Allthoughts to realize his ideals inspired by the Enigma Codex, authored by an Auri technologist 100 years before. There's not a whole lot there for Alexandria to hang their hat on, but, hey, Mide and Dayan are their own people's ancestors. When, from Alexander's perspective, all time is happening at once, the linear series of moments we experience is an illusion, and "when" you are is relative, there's always room for retcons. If someone on the writing team wants an Alexander connection badly enough, it might happen...