3-10 billion years is quite a gap in time though. Like almost half of the time the universe has supposedly existed.
Not sure what you mean by supposedly, but we know the known universe (back to the big bang) is 14B years. We know our planet is 4.5B years old. Some stars burn out faster (3B years) than others (10B).
See:
13.7B years ago: Big Bang
13.5B years ago: first stars form <--
(3-10B years ago): first stars explode and form heavier elements
(3-10B years ago): remnants of exploded stars reform into new stars and planets
[repeat 2-3x]*
4.5B years ago: Earth is formed
*this is the part I don't quite understand and we don't really know. We don't know what generation exactly our star is, whether it's 2nd or 3rd or what.
The point of the article is that over 10 trillion years, most life will form around small-mass stars that have 1T+ lifespans, so we must be the exception since neither of those are true for us. I'm saying I don't buy it because
???
The first part of your post reads like support for the hypothesis.
wait, it makes sense after I type it out. Eh. See!