My wife and I are planning a multi-segment roundtrip itinerary in paid F from S.E. Asia to the US (via Europe) with stops in each region. AA has a very attractive "A" fare (AOWISC) fare whose Fare rules specifically state:
Maximum Stay: NO RESTRICTION
Minimum Stay: NO RESTRICTION

However, when discussing some proposed flight date/time changes, a AA telephone agent informed me that the last segment (there are 8) needed to be flown within a year of ticketing.

I called the OTA from which I had purchased the ticket, and the telephone CS rep agreed that since the ticket had been issued by AA (001-xxxx), that the trip needs to be completed within a year of the date of ticketing.

I'm confused about this unwritten restriction, and am wondering whether there is any way to confirm with a Fare desk whether this unwritten rule definitively applies in this situation, especially since many of the flights are on other airlines (including the final 3 segments). I'm curious whether the year limit gets pushed back each time the ticket is reissued.

At first the AA telephone agent stated that the ticket needed to start within one year of ticketing, something that I'm very familiar with from my experience wrt OneWorld around-the-world tickets ----but I was flabbergasted when she went on to say that any AA-issued ticket also had to be completely flown by then. Such a restriction is familiar to me only for AAdvantage miles tickets, not paid tickets. I'm frankly bewildered as to why such a constraint/restriction would not be specified in the Fare rules.

I'd be grateful for input from anyone with practical experience (or definitive information) with such matters. TIA!