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The point remains that premillennialism was the earliest view of the church.

Let's get this straight. Premillennialism was never the view "of the church". There was never an early creed of confession adopted by the church that was distinctively premillennial.

As Schaff says of Irenaeus, "He regarded this expectation of the earthly perfection of Christ’s kingdom as the key-stone of pure doctrine, but adds that many pure and devout Christians of his day did not share this opinion." There were "many" who did not hold his views on the millennium, so it could never have been the view "of the church." Premillennialism was merely an "opinion" of some early church fathers.

So most of these sorts of comments amount to overblown rhetoric.

Because there were later theological ideas does not negate the earliest ideas.

So what different does it make that some folks in the early church (as opposed to the "early church") held nascent premil ideas? The best you can say is that there were some scattered ideas along these lines. But the early church saw lots of odd ideas pop up and fade away, alike Arianism.

None of this really helps the modern dispensationalists, whose basically carnal views on future Israel were almost universally condemned by the early church, even premils. They were only adopted by the heretical groups like the Ebionites. Note Schaff's comment:

The Jewish chiliasm rested on a carnal misapprehension of the Messianic kingdom, a literal interpretation of prophetic figures, and an overestimate of the importance of the Jewish people and the holy city as the centre of that kingdom. It was developed shortly before and after Christ in the apocalyptic literature, as the Book of Enoch, the Apocalypse of Baruch, 4th Esdras, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Sibylline Books. It was adopted by the heretical sect of the Ebionites, and the Gnostic Cerinthus.

"... a carnal misapprehension of the Messianic kingdom". Sounds like modern dispensationalism to the tee.

Actually, I cannot find any quote of Irenaeus regarding "pure and devout Christians not sharing his opinions." If you can give me a cite in Irenaeus, then I can look it up.

I have read such a quote from, I believe, Justin Martyr, when he was discussing the millennium, but I can't find one in Irenaeus.

However, in Irenaeus as in Martyr, there is no indication that they are speaking of any other DOCTRINE but of various points of THAT PREMILLENNIAL doctrine. In other words, premillennialists discussing points of dispute with other premillennialists.

You make a gross assumption that Irenaeus was speaking of post-millenialism or of amillennialism. There is no indication of that whatsoever.

In fact, it is not even likely that those opinions would receive any kind of approval by Irenaeus (they didn't exist then). Irenaeus is very firm when he says:

1. If, however, any shall endeavour to allegorize [prophecies] of this kind, they shall not be found consistent with themselves in all points, and shall be confuted by the teaching of the very expressions [in question](Irenaeus, V, 35)

He is speaking against gnostics who attempt to allegorize scripture.

Sadly, this makes it appear that the later tendency to allegorize prophecy was an idea that came to them from gnosticism.

There is no doubt that Irenaeus was a premillennialist:

But in the times of the kingdom, the earth has been called again by Christ [to its pristine condition], and Jerusalem rebuilt after the pattern of the Jerusalem above, of which the prophet Isaiah says, "Behold, I have depicted thy walls upon my hands, and thou art always in my sight,"(323) And the apostle, too, writing to the Galatians, says in like manner, "But the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all."(324) He does not say this with any thought of an erratic Aeon, or of any other power which departed from the Pleroma, or of Prunicus, but of the Jerusalem which has been delineated on [God's] hands. And in the Apocalypse John saw this new [Jerusalem] descending upon the new earth.(325) For after the times of the kingdom, he says, "I saw a great white throne, and Him who sat upon it, from whose face the earth fled away, and the heavens; and there was no more place for them."(326)

If Ireneaus was speaking of others with different opinions than his, he WAS NOT speaking of others given to ALLEGORIZING scripture. He didn't approve of that at all.

Incidentally, he says that John wrote Revelation near the death of Domitian (96 AD.) Importantly, he says that IF JOHN had known the name of the anti-christ that John would have told the name rather than give a number (666.)

This is so true and proves that Revelation was not written prior to 70 AD. John lived afterwards in Ephesus and had plenty of time to clear up that name if he had known it.