I have always understood that the mistranslation of the word "Was" in Genesis 1:2 was the culprit for this controversy. Most newer translations (including your disdained NIV) show a footnote that "Became" is also acceptable. The Hebrew word is "Hayah" and for reference it is the same hebrew word used in Genesis 19:26 where it says "But Lot's wife looked back and she "became" a pillar of salt."
When the proper translation is used, and traditional theology is ignored, you do indeed find acceptable the idea as you proposed of a prior creation.....but, I do agree that the creation from Genesis 1:3 through 1:31 took a literal 6 days to complete. And God rested on the Sabbath.
Using "became" as the verb in Genesis 1:2 allows then perhaps billions and billions of years between verse 1 and verse 2. Then 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 make more sense when you realize that the location "Tartarus"(Greek for the commonly mis-translated Hell) is the current restrained condition of the sinning angels from the "Ancient" world.
I often ask people to show me in scripture where the rebellion of Satan and his angels took place....if not before Genesis 1:2?????
Using different words to water down meaning can always allow for different things to be done with the words as a whole. That's why language is designed to give words specific meaning such that clarity is established to the extent possible when using specific words. What you reason would be allowed vs. what the passage says is two different things. In the original language, no such billions of years nonsense is supported.
Genesis 1:31 (KJV): 'And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.'
The last day of creation. EVERY thing that God created was deemed 'good', so the rebellion of Lucifer could not have happened prior then. Ezekiel 28:13 'Thou [Lucifer] hast been in Eden the garden of God.' To say that God would create the Garden of Eden - with all it's attendant plant and animal life for Lucifer and the angels, only to destroy it, then recreate it and the Garden again is insanity. If God can create the universe to begin with, He certainly could make it in an instant, or 6 days - not require billions of years, and multiple attempts to get it right. Satan rebelled some time after Adam and Eve were created.