I enjoyed your clarification. I agree. Old records have many mistakes. I was common in the 18th and 19th centuries the people hired to record information were sometimes just literate, using phonics to spell names. Asking the name holder how to spell could be viewed as lacking a job skill. Unemployment for a scribe would have been undesirable. Then there is also the name giver. The individual speaking their information to the recorder may be intimidated causing one to speak in a mumbled volume. An example would be many women named Nancy gave their name as Nanie, not knowing they were to provide their birth name for formal records. Due to errors, like you mentioned, of a birthdate 1707 v. 1717, and people naming their children after close relatives, the true gets blurred.
I suspect the child you mention that seems to be born to the couple 30 years later, while they were 56 and 60, is one of their grand children. Even in our modern times, grandparents end up raising their grandchildren as if these are their own. That is probably what happened.
My grandmother is listed on two census records for the same year, and as daughter in two separate households. Is this error? No. She was under age and pregnant. Early in the year she lived in her family home. By the middle of the year she moved in with the baby's father's family, and was recorded as their daughter. It was 1930 Oklahoma. It took the whole year for the census to be completed.
With literacy issues, spoken and written, and information being collected over a liberal amount of time - unlike today with Internet and data entry - Claiborne Hicks was probably a grandchild being raised as their own and would probably be in a will set up for inheritance. Listing him out of order was probably initially done by a recorded that wrote the names down in the order the parent/guardian listed the names, and reordering the names did not seem important at the time to those making the will.

Regards,
Tina