The problem is that the earlier Hubble theories were based on math and physics which appeared to make sense.
When they do not work in the real world that is not an “anomaly”.
That is a critical breakdown in the theory.
Refusal to face theory failures is exactly why major leaps forward in science require old scientists to die—the geezers never like to admit they made huge errors.
As you say, it was all just math on paper until we actually saw it. This may eventually overturn the idea that the universe began from a cosmic singularity, we don’t know yet. One interesting thing they have found however, is just at the extreme edge of what JWST is capable of seeing: little red dots—LRD’s. Red because they’re extremely red-shifted, therefore very old. They’re as bright as galaxies but they’re not galaxies. Progenitor supermassive black holes perhaps. In any case there was something there before anything was supposed to be. So our theories about the very early universe are in fact broken.