Personally I love that the Wanderer is unreliable because it makes all the inconsistencies tolerable. Just right them off as the narrator and change the details to the DMs story.
I too like the original boxed set as a starting point, which is why I liked 4e’s take. The website’s original charter with WotC was that we were to stick with the timeline and thus the revised boxed set, but I never liked the killing of 3 SK’s, it changed the dynamics too much.
I also like the idea of different histories and make one called the Arcane Apocalypse.