If you come into possession of the artifact you do feel a presence inside of it. The dead Mind-Flayer Dror Ragzlin is trying to talk to, pictures a "circle of Mind-Flayers, absolute authority, absolute power" (or something like that) when asked what the Absolute is. What the Mind-Flayer angle is, is very interesting, my tentative guess is around reclaiming lost knowledge, (such as making Nautiloids) but who can say/
As for continuity around Elturel retconning the populations of the FR isn't an oversight, it's a retcon, or it could be anyway. Usually retcons come with an attempt to rationalize them but not always, especially when our sources are manuals full of blurbs.
Don't sleep on
TheAlexandrian either if you haven't
