Far be it from me to question the lead writer. However... From reading all the codexes, I always get the impression the ancient elves predate the legend of the Maker. There's something off about the timelines, in my opinion. I wonder if maybe DG was speaking fast and loose and not really keeping all the established lore in mind. Or maybe he was laying down the law once and for all like he had to about Cullen's retconned post-Origins slide?
To me it seems, the formation of the Andrastian faith had to form after Arlathan fell. Andraste campaigned against Tevinter. Solas says Tevinter was built over the bones of his people and we know the ancient elves were already fading away when humans came along so the Andraste portion of Chantry lore post-dates the elven gods. Andraste freed the current mortal elves from human magister enslavement. Solas's ancient elves were slaves to the evanuris which were also ancient elves like them but they were puffed up on their own importance. There's no mention of Andraste at this time. So it seems she came along later.
The chantry lore from Origins also states the Maker created spirits first and then locked them away behind the Veil. I forget if he was credited with creating the Veil. But if he locked them behind the veil that already existed, and Solas claims to have made the veil... The Makers banishment of his first children would have come after the evanuris. If the Maker was credited with building the veil, then we have a conflict in the lore as there are two claims to this and either someone is lying or they're both the same entity.
I don't see how the ancient elven could have come after the Maker. Unless he came along, built the world, made spirits and then left things that way? Then the ancient elves rose into prominence, fought a war, the evanuris rose to false god hood and Solas locked them all away and the Maker's spirits were included behind the veil somehow? This would also contradict the Chantry lore about who locked the spirits away and wouldn't the Maker have been upset if some elven upstart locked his kids up? Unless they are one and the same beings?
Random hypothesis! The Makers' spirits drove the venerated ancient elves mad and led them to believe they were gods? Orrrrrrr.... The war Solas mentioned was fought against the spirits the Maker made? Though he never mentioned if spirits existed back then...
But I digress...
Perhaps the Maker did come first, created spirits and left the development of the ancient elves alone and the humans crafted a tale about their god's greatness since they lacked any further info.
After all of this, Tevinter rose and enslaved mortal elves and Andraste came along, singing about the Maker so the one thing the Chantry faith hinges on, it's greatest claim to legitimacy, came after the evanuris. Whether that means the Maker also post-dates the evanuris is unclear. But I'd find it reasonable to infer the Maker came along after and saw this newly blank canvas and started creating his own vision. It seems to me the ancient elves were before the maker's time unless he simply waited around. I'd also find it reasonable to infer that the Maker existed before and that his spirits were what Solas's people fought in the war he mentioned. Though the Maker would have been rather complacent all this time and just watching events unfold...
It's all so mixed up, I have to wonder if DG wasn't just talking fast and loose and in the spur of the moment about his personal vision. Being lead writer and all, he might have had every intention of sticking to this but it got too tangled later on.
If you read DG's post, he partially addresses this. The Maker is a renaming of the Creator who predates Tevinter. The myth that this creator god turned away from humanity already existed. Andraste and her subsequent church re-discovered the Maker with the goal of returning humanity to His worship. She and the Chantry come much later in history.
As far as the Chant, the writers have been pretty wink-wink-nudge-nudge that modern understanding of religious history in Thedas is pretty flawed, Andrastians and Dalish alike, and all the Chant's dissonant verses and whatnot show how politics has shaped what remains. So my feeling is that the whole story of the Black/Golden City is wrong in probably substantial ways, particularly given what Corypheus says about how it wasn't golden when he got there. The story of the Maker consigning the old gods to their slumber is also likely wrong, since DG said explicitly in that thread that it's an open question whether the Maker or the Old Gods predate each other.
As far as the Maker's first children from the Chant, I personally think that's just a poetic way of describing the Elvhen people before the Veil, who basically functioned as spirit-like beings who weren't always flesh.
DA:I, and Solas himself, told us that the Elvhen gods and the Evanuris aren't gods at all. So, I don't really see any kind of contradiction with there also existing some mysterious, non-interacting Creator god, whom Thedas now calls the Maker, who created the world and then sat back to watch it burn go.
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