You must have been squinting a lot reading some of those stories, then. While they ostensibly take place in a shared setting, Agents of SHIELD and Endgame are not the same work of fiction. As with the comics, different hands.
Yes, that's what I've been saying -- that if AoS took that route, then it wouldn't be compatible with the movies anymore.
Nope. You spoke of AoS as if it were expected to be part of the same singular work of fiction as Endgame. It's not and never was, regardless of how well the in-story continuity does or doesn't hold up. Different productions, different writers, different media. If we take that at as a given, then Agents of SHIELD needs to keep itself consistent with...Agents of SHIELD. Not with Endgame.
For a time, the comics did have "official" rules about how time travel was supposed to work in their stories. But official seemed to mean "some writers choose to follow it, while others don't bother." Because they're telling stories, and what serves the story is always going to take priority over that kind of rulebook.
Heck no. The first time I personally remember the "divergent timeline" idea being used was in Byrne's FF run in the 80s. Now maybe it's been retconned since then that all time travel works that way, but it certainly wasn't meant to be a part of major time travel stories prior to that, like Englehart's Immortus storyline.
The very first time travel story of the Marvel Age didn't seem to be playing by divergent timeline rules: Fantastic Four #5, July 1962 (Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)
What the comics did is beside the point. The MCU is a different reality and a different artistic creation, so it isn't obligated to exactly replicate the thing it's using as inspiration. All that matters is the set of rules it's established for itself.
AoS didn't establish those rules, and is now infamously out of the loop with the people who did. I don't believe for a second that you actually believe that all of the productions in an increasingly sprawling, multi-media shared setting count as a single artistic creation.
You really aren't paying attention, are you? For the third time, my whole point is that it isn't any longer -- that if they go this route, it makes it clearer than ever that AoS is not MCU canon anymore. You don't need to explain my own argument to me.
"It isn't any longer"? Try paying attention to my point: It never was. In a shared universe franchise, individual productions are still individual productions, regardless of how well or poorly they maintain consistency with other parts of the franchise.
I use that approach myself in something I wrote. Little bubbles in the multiverse...if the only difference between two universes is at some point someone had two sugars instead of one, and it made no difference at all further down, the multiverse just weaves the divergence back in again to the timeline. Conservation of energy across a multiverse. Time isn’t a line, it’s a cluster of bubbles, sometimes in bigger bubbles. I never finished it, as part one didn’t get much feedback or interest.
What happens every time writers or fans try to impose these kinds of rules, whether about time travel or magic or whatever, on superhero universes:
Ah. She must be after my time. I quit reading Marvel (with a few minor exceptions) after the Clone Saga.
Brand New for that story line. Though the name or variations have been used for characters in the past. And of course the name is from classical mythology.