the first series was not the time period for the creation of the final five

the story of the first series was basically the same as this one "a fleet lead by a man named Adama captaining a battleship named Galactica looks for Earth"

this series just made everything better, the old series was bad, and i mean bad, terrible writing, terrible stories, terrible acting

As far as predating the other 7, I agree, they do seem to do that. I'm thinking more that they might be "more human" than the other 7. I'm still not sure if they have other models to resurrect to.