“What you cited is not what is in the text. Apostolic healings does not constitute the signs in the text of Matthew 24. We are talking about cosmic signs in the sun, moon, stars ... global cosmic signs. Those signs are related to the second coming of Christ.”
You ignored the part about “until the time of the gentiles be fulfilled.” IOW, that has not yet been quite settled yet, obviously. And there were, in fact, signs and wonders in Jerusalem prior to its destruction. For example, they saw and heard armies fighting in the skies above Jerusalem prior to the siege. There was a comet which hung over the city for a year in the form of a sword. The massive doors to the temple were seen to open on their own. A voice was heard from within, saying, “Let us depart hence,” and a great rumbling occurred. There was a man who, for seven years if I recall correctly, cried “Woe! Woe! Woe to Jerusalem and to the Holy House!” up until he was killed by a Roman catapult. These things were reported by Josephus, and Titus reported a few of them.
I do believe Christ answers the Apostles questions about “the end of the world.” But he also answers them about what will soon come to pass, which is the destruction of the Jewish nation, the end of the old testament age, the scattering of the Jews to a new and long lasting bondage, and a promise that Israel will be trampled under foot by the gentiles “until the time of the gentiles be fulfilled.” All of these things have come to pass. But you choose to believe the entirety of the Prophecy refers only to some future Temple and future Jewish tribulation! Even when Christ said specifically that there would be those who stood there who would not taste of death until they saw Christ coming! It is because that anyone who knew of the events of Jerusalem, the horrors and the tribulations that befell that ancient city, none would doubt that it was the wrath of God, the “coming of the son of man in judgment.” That does not mean that Christ will not return as promised in Revelation, and literally fulfill the undoing of the world, but this prophecy applied both to those present Jews (the bloody moon and tempestuous waters referring to calamities in civil government and chaos among the people) and to the end of the world as well. Daniel uses the same language referring to giant beasts coming out of the water, and stars falling from the sky, but these are spiritual images with a significance beyond the obvious.
“Are you really prepared to claim that the second coming occurred in 70 AD?”
Are you really prepared to claim that God did not rain down his wrath of Israel starting in 66ad, and ending in 73 with the fall of Masada, and that a continuing desolation of that land and the Jewish people around the world has not gone on almost from that time to the present, exactly as predicted by Christ who said that Jerusalem would be trodded down by the Gentiles “until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled”?
Are you really prepared to claim that Jesus did NOT answer the Apostle’s question, and referred everything only to the end of the world, rather than systematically answering the question in the usual Prophetic style?
“Honestly ... preterism is a house of cards and is the easiest eschatology to dispense with out of hand ...”
I have heard of Preterism, but I have never studied its particular dogmas. I don’t know much about it, though I do read lots of older commentaries. None agree entirely with the modern ideas, which I suspect come from not reading Josephus and the older commentaries!
Take the time to do a very careful study of Matt 24 alongside Luke 21. When you study them, do not try to harmonize them at all ... but rather note the differences between those two discourses, not the similarities.
Dr. Mark Hitchcock effectively buried preterism so far in the ground that a replay of Noah's flood couldn't bring it to the surface. If you are interested in Biblical truth, here is a talk he gave on the facts of the false doctrine of preterism and how Scripture and historical facts blow that silly, ignorant belief into a million pieces. The message begins at about the 5:36 mark: