contemporary readers would have understood every anti-christ reference to have meant somebody they'd know and hate.

The antichrist of revelation was understood to be Nero, for example, where Daniel would have been talking about babylon. Remember: we're not the target audience. The target audience was the original audience contemporary to the author. the eschatology of Revelation has already been seen to happen. The world didn't end. the book is wrong. (Insert "it was all allegory anyway" here.)