Regarding Alden as Solo;
I didn’t have a problem making the jump. He felt like Han to me, particularly as a younger man making his way. To use a backward example; Just after the cantina conversation in Star Wars when Han sort of finds humor in his good fortune, his demeanor when he says ”17,000?..those guys must really be desperate” sounds like something Alden-Solo would say and how he’d say it.
Alden really comes across as Solo as we first ever met him on Tatooine: A smug, but very capable, bullshitter. His call out of Beckett when he says ”either you heal really fast or…” also feels like Cantina Solo to me.