Akhbarism before al-Astrabadi?

Madelung, Newman, Kohlberg and Stewart argue that Akhbarism may have already existed before al-Astrabadi (footnote in the book is referring to their papers).

But according to Gleave [1] no Akhbari texts from this earlier period have survived to prove this thesis conclusively. Furthermore, the akhbariyya mentioned in these earlier texts held opinions on a range of subjects beyond the rejection of ijtihad, i.e., legitimacy on using the reason, rejection of a government, distribution of the community taxes and the validity of the Friday prayer.

The Usuli's view Akhbarism as a relatively recent phenomenon (starting in the 17 century AD with Muhammad Amin al-Astarabadi). Each group also asserts that their opponents’ views coincide with Sunni opinions.

Gleave [1] noted that the Akhbaris did not seem to have a unanimous position on whether or not this scriptural-ism applied to other areas of religious knowledge.

• There were Akhbaris who used reason (al-aql) as a proof of the basic elements of the Shia creed, writing kalam works in the process.
• There were Akhbaris who promoted direct religious experience as a means of gaining religious knowledge out side of the law.
• There were Akhbaris who simply collected reports of the Imams concerning non-legal matters (in particular theological doctrines current in kalam works), and offered no personal reasoning as to how these might be brought together into a coherent doctrine.
• There were even those who chiseled out a limited role for reason in their legal theory, but based this allowance exclusively on scriptural grounds (in that the Imams had, themselves, give explicit permission for reason to be used in restricted circumstances).

Reference
[1] Scripturalist Islam: The History and Doctrines of the Akhbārī Shiʿī School By Robert Gleave