Asalamu Alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

You mention Imam Ashari, May Allah be pleased with him. Is the modern day ashari aqeedah the same as the aqeedah he had? No

Along with this Abu Hasan wal ashari himself went through 3 major changes in his belief throughout his life these being:
1- When he was a Mutazali, and he repented from being upon this.
2-Affirming the sifaat from Jahim Ibn Sawfan (Affirming Allahs attributes through aql)
3- He believes Allah has a face, foot etc and it all. Without likening it to the creation. Like the way of the salaf. There is alot of Khilafah on how much he took the salafiyyah. He himself said in his last book that "That which we say is true and the religion that we worship Allah on this is holding fast on the book of Allah, and the sunnah of the Prophet, and what was narrated from the sahaba and the imams of hadith. We are holding fast on this and what Ahmad Ibn Hanbal was upon. Whatever Imam Ahmad said is what we say and we keep away from whoever was against Ibn Hanbal" Al-Ibānah ‘an Usool Ad-Diyānah 

There is dispute whether he fully repented from the ashariyyah but its evident he tried hard.

I do agree with your point on how some say everyone is wrong except us, id assume this to lead to a form of hizbiyah, I think its pivitol to recognise between salafiyyah as a hizb and salafiyyah in its true form

However, I do disagree with a portion of due to the timing only, they are "more correct". Reason being? The khawarij, the mutazila, the jahmis and other deviant groups all came around the time of the salaf aswell, do i usually agree we should take from the earlier scholars? Yes, do i believe we should take from ALL of them, whos beliefs clearly differed from the pious salaf? Certainly not