Stewart in interviews has seemed 'younger' than how he was playing Picard, I think Stewart was purposly playing him older.
If you were part of the group leading/in charge of said organization, you might. If the year is 2401 - Picard is 95/96 depending on how early/late in the year all the events are taking place. (They confirmed his birth year on screen as 2305 in S1 of Picard.)
If my organisation was responsible for the deaths of millions of people, I’d probably sit that one out.
But Starfleet and the Federation WASN'T responsible for the Hobus explosion. Yes, Spock attempted to stop what everyone (including the Romulans) knew was coming, and failed; but neither he nor the Federation was teh cause of the situation and explosion. As for Starfleet aide to Romulan survivors, it was shown as a very decisive political issue within the Federation itself, so one Mars was attacked and thousands of Federation citizens killed (and THE major Starfleet shipyard and many ships in that yard destroyed); priorities in the Federation itself changed. It's not like there honestly wasn't a good reason for said change - but Picard (as usual) refused to face the actual reality of the situation - and acknowledge the fact that the Federation wasn't an altruistic entity above all else.
I just don’t think there’s a good reason to allow millions of people to die. Yes, Starfleet aren’t responsible for what happened, but they certainly have blood on their hands here imo. There would’ve been starships already in service that would’ve been able to help in the rescue attempts. And saving as many Romulan civilians as possible would surely have been hugely significant in improving diplomatic relations with the new government. Much in the same way the Enterprise Cs destruction was a catalyst in peace with the Klingons. “Sorry, we’ve got our own shit going on” is pretty spurious reasoning.
We really don't know how the Federation in general felt about the decision to cease the Romulan evacuation efforts. For all we know 45% of people wanted the efforts to continue but 55% wanted them halted, and the 55% had more political sway between them. This is all being painted in very binary terms.
Wasn’t the conceit that the golem was exactly the same as his frail human body, except for the brain defect?
Yes, that is exactly the conceit as the crew figured Picard would prefer a natural life, and living out his full days, rather than artificial youth.
I think the issue is that because people have evolved they are suppose to be more mature and maybe not get so angry because Picard stood up for the right thing to do. Now maybe we modern humans would still not care and we would still get upset because we were called out but for a 24th century human it doesn't really line up well with what we saw. Starfleet is trained to deal with all sorts of hostile aliens and aliens with different views but when a a famous hero and Icon says something you don't like you basically turn on him. That
I mean, yes, I see the point of view. But, Shaw is demonstrated to be working through a painful history, what we don't know. He doesn't approve of "ex-Borg", and he doesn't approve of Picard's "cowboy" antics when he was in charge. Picard is the type of officer that bothers him, in addition to whatever Picard's last words about Starfleet were. Again, it's not just one little thing that Shaw or Clancy are being sticks in the mud about. It's the culmination of several negative events, and even the most enlightened of Federation citizens still struggle with negative impressions, as demonstrated in TNG with Barclay, with Ro, with O'Brien. The "evolved" label as itself evolved to mean something that it didn't even mean in TNG.
The problem now is that this is the synth body made for Confed Picard from the evil timeline, with Prime Picard's mind jammed in by Q. We don't actually know its exact specs. There was a lot of talk why he didn't have super strength and speed as you'd assume an evil Picard would've wanted. Maybe this has been covered in Picard tie-in fiction, but I'm still not clear on the circumstances of how much the average Romulan knew about this supernova. Ok, maybe the average Romulan couldn't get out and I can accept that. Did they even know? We know the supernova was publicized enough that Fed members threatened to leave, that the Mars attack publicly shut down Fed evacuation efforts, and that Picard himself made a speech on Romulus to the Romulan Senate promising aid (must've been weird for them to see a Shinzon lookalike representing the Fed this way but ok). But did the average Romulan outside the Senate know or was it classified to prevent panic among the average Romulans? Star Trek Countdown cannot be relied upon, so all we have is the movie--Nero says he's the last of the Romulan Empire (obviously not true going by the Free Republic in Picard) and we're told now by showrunners that his rage at the Fed is due to them backing out of evacuating them. When did he find out about the Fed backing out? Years before the supernova during the Mars attack of 2385? He seemingly has his own super spiky mining ship that could've brought his wife out if he wanted to. Why didn't he?
Nero was promised by Spock to save Romulus. So, he trusted Spock, and by extension, the Federation, and continued his work.
Seven of Nine is now Borg again, so presumably Picard also transitioned back to his Prime body when Q returned them to the Stargazer.
He's not playing his voice older. He started to lose his voice 7 or 8 years ago. He's younger than shatner but he looks older and his voice sounds older. Shatner still has a strong voice and frankly looks younger than Stewart even though he's a decade older.
Life is not a simple binary set of circumstances. Both things (relatively weaker voice as a consequence of aging AND playing it weaker still for the purposes of a given role) can simultaneously be true.