I thought the same when they said back in january that they were working on august applications. The next update was that may 10-may 16 one but it wasn't clear if they'd been working backwards from august to may in the meantime.
but seeing as how they are now saying may17, i'm guessing they just jumped back 3 months and are working down the backlog instead of reverse order.
that's a pure guess though, I have no real data to back that up other than the above. My AOR is may 2nd, and despite it appearing like they're working down from May 10th to the present, they have suddenly started taking steps on my file after months of nothing. So I think the reality is that there's a lot more nuance to their processing procedures than the simple statements they are publicly sharing.
Well, I assume you're correct too because we still see June/July/Aug AORs applicants getting approved on a daily basis. Their system is so unfair, but what else can we do? Do webforms/calling help in these scenarios?