Trigger Warning

Despite Lannisport being on the opposite side of Westeros I think passing the Arbor and Oldtown before finishing up in the Westerlands with its gold and goldsmiths would likely attract a lot more high value traders despite the increased distance. The value of local commodities that you can trade for is very important.

He likely raised those 13,000 men rapidly to take advantage of the rebel victory at the trident and then just set off with as many as he could gather in that limited time.

The point is they're single structures covering very limited avenues of approach. Winterfell is a monstrously huge castle with a shit load towers and a shit load of walls to cover.

Winterfell's far too big for 30 men to cover. It's another example of GRRM describing huge structures and then having people interact with them as if they're much smaller. Defending a tower with a small number of men is much more feasible than defending a sprawling castle, the only practical way for that few men to hold Winterfell would be to just hold the central keep but Theon has men on the outer walls.

Maintaining a fleet to stop little fishing villages getting raided seems a bit much. Not that they'd even manage to catch most of the raiders.

I'd say it's pretty typical for people to be off by a year or two when talking or thinking about how long ago something was especially in offhand conversation. Speaking of Robb she probably just thinks about that entire period as being as long ago as her son is old, people aren't that precise.

As it happens I'm in that thread arguing too, add another 2 years on and I've still not been presented with any textual evidence and never will be because so far there is none. Yet the debate rages on.

Because he'd lose and every house in the Riverlands would know it. He's better off disappearing and going somewhere he has friends to prepare for a more opportune moment.

You're looking at this in a very rigid way. Renly is aligned with the Tyrells through Loras and also has connections with the Reach. We know this from when Penrose lists off the houses that "love Renly best". Convincing Robert to replace Cersei absolutely is working to expand his own influence, Cersei holds a tremendous amount of power at court through Robert, we see this in how he bends to her will and in the appointments of Lannisters. That influence is backed by Tywin's power but flows through Cersei, by removing her Renly can fill that missing power vacuum with someone that's aligned with his faction. He doesn't need to be in direct league with the head of house Tyrell to benefit from them gaining influence at court, his connections to the Reach and his relationship with Loras make it obvious as to why a Tyrell queen would benefit him over a Lannister who at best he has no influence over and at worst is in complete opposition to him.

Renly's a threat and Renly was likely politicking against her from the moment he got there to expand his influence and the influence of the Tyrells. It's a political environment and that's going to involve factionalism, I don't think we need personal reasons for why they "don't get along".

Speaking of this I feel like exposure to how the Starks behave with Ned has set up expectations for the rest of Westeros to behave similarly, in comparison to other families and our own history across many cultures I'd say he's a lot more involved with raising his children than would be typical for a noble family. People often look on Renly and Stannis fighting each other as awful because they're brothers but really taking history as reference it's what noble families spent a load of their time doing and it's easy to see why since they're typically not raised as a family unit in the way we think of them today.

I doubt Renly spent enough time at court in his youth for them to establish that kind of relationship.

I've argued about Renly not knowing about the twincest tonnes and am honestly pretty tired of it but really the idea that Renly knew about it and never once brought it up even when trying to literally claim the throne is asinine. Ultimately GRRM hasn't written one bit of text with Renly acknowledging it or anyone acknowledging that he knows. However what we do have is this little musing of Renly's that makes zero sense if he already knew. “Do I?” Renly shrugged. “So be it. Stannis was never the most cherished of brothers, I confess. Do you suppose this tale of his is true? If Joffrey is the Kingslayer’s get—” “—your brother is the lawful heir.” “While he lives,” Renly admitted The only way this makes sense with Renly knowing is that he's putting on an act for Cat which is frankly ridiculous, he's literally keeping her captive so she can watch him annihilate Stannis as a threat to her and Robb, he has nothing to gain by doing this he doesn't care what she thinks. It's taking a human moment of introspection and turning it into a conspiracy.

Like I said I really don't have much of an opinion on this either way. It just seems inconsistent with how Stannis is that he would consider fathering a son as King to be a duty yet didn't as a lord.

My point was Shireen is eleven years old and an only child.