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I have to be honest and say I don't see very much difference at all between the celebration of the Divine Liturgy by the Greek Orthodox, and its celebration by the Antiochean Orthodox or the Melkites (except for the Melkite fondness for intinction). The transition from the Syriac rite to the Byzantine rite seems to have taken place between the 8th and 9th centuries, and it's been so long whatever elements of the older rite were retained can be discerned only by experts.

Not quite, I think. Greek was the initial liturgical language of the area. Syriac took over for quite some time; evidence of it exists until beyond the 11th century, perhaps as late as the 15th century in some areas. Some of the older liturgical books/scrolls that we use to determine feasts, etc., are still in Syriac.

From Syriac it was an easy move to Arabic (a related language), although most of the movement officially went back to Greek. Arabic become more and more widespread in usage throughout the 17th century, and in fact was one of the pain points causing the eventual rift between what are now the Melkite Greek-Catholic and the Antiochian Orthodox Churches.

The Antiochian Orthodox Church finally made Arabic its main liturgical language only in 1898! It had struggled under the Greek (and seen as "foreign") influence of Constantinople until then.

I would like to see evidence for the claim that Greek was the first liturgical language of Greater Syria, particularly in light of the existence of very old Semitic liturgies that exist only in Aramaic or Syriac, and which seem never to have had a Greek original.