Panzer, I think you're on the right track to continue to observe and to seek further evals. Much of what you say about your ds' early writing development sounds like my dysgraphic ds, some sounds different. The one main difference between your situation and my ds' is that you're looking at signs earlier, which could mean you're overthinking it and what you are seeing is just normal development, or it could mean that you've caught on to an issue early. My ds isn't ASD, but he does have challenges with expressive language, and that tangled together with dysgraphia/dyspraxia made it difficult to tease out the impact of some of the challenges early on because you'd see signs of one challenge but not have the full picture yet because of the other not-recognized challenge. I hope that makes sense lol!
It may feel like others think you're overanalyzing when they say things like "it's normal to reverse letters up through 2nd grade" etc... and yet you'll wonder until you do have more info. Seeking out that type of info, whenever there's any hint of a red flag of something going on - is a *good* thing. If the answer you finally get back from an eval is "everything's ok, you were overthinking it" - that's A-OK, actually a really good thing! OTOH, if your concerns are confirmed, then you're ready to take the next steps of getting a plan together and getting help and support for your ds - and the earlier in his life he has appropriate remediation and support, the better things will be for both of you
Best wishes,
polarbear
ps - dysgraphia, like dyslexia, does seem to appear in family clusters. There are several dysgraphic/dyslexic individuals in my dh's family, and ds has at least one dysgraphic cousin and one dyslexic cousin. I think it's telling that you describe re-learning how to write in middle school the *way* you describe it. It's not all that atypical for a middle school student to change the appearance of their handwriting - I remember doing that to be "cool" when I was in middle school, doing things like purposely making the dots above my "i"s huge and changing the amount of slant, making curly-q shapes on long letters etc. Writing neatly also becomes important at this stage for all students due to increased length of writing assessments and increased demands from teachers. However, your description of actually relearning how to make the letters and doing it the way you'd draw a picture sounds *very* much like my dysgraphic ds.
