If I understand you correctly, you are of the "6000 year school". I'm not necessarily opposed to that if that figure is plotted against the "relativity" that would have slowed time down in the overall gravitational field of the universe from Day 1 to Day 6. In this sense, both scenarios work for me.
Though that the universe had this expansion would have provided the billions of years necessary to fuse the heavier elements through earlier generations of stars.
It appears to me that this is how God willed it. If you have a better theory as to how this came to be, I'm all screen.
Insofar as starlight is concerned, consider the Sirius system. This lies close enough to our solar system for the to be measured by 'triangulation' from one side of the Sun to the other, which gives us a "standard candle" relating to the cosmic distance scale. Knowing this luminosity, we can plot the distance to a similar star that may be some further distance out which is not subject to triangulation. Some of the light is scattered, but in such a sense to long be invisible to us over such distance scales. What we do see though is the source as a "pinpoint", at least insofar as it's close enough to see, mainly stars in our own galaxy. Though through Hubble and other orbiting telescopes, we can see galaxies very far away, yet recognize stellar sources therein as if they were just a few hundred lightyears.
As I asked though: Anything better?
Then, in your view, you must explain why we have a week
a week
there is zero cosmological explanation for a 7 day week
In the 10 commandments, a week is demanded to be recognized
where did it come from?
Genesis
Your version is an undetermined period of time
Look up what was created on what day of the week in Genesis
then tell me how we had plant life for an undetermined period of time without a Sun