Okay, I get that Dumbledore is supposed to be arguably the greatest wizard of all time, at least for hundreds and hundreds of years, but still, did anyone else roll their eyes when Dumbledore is made out to know more about wandlore than Ollivander?

 

Um, alright.

I don't know when it was made out that Dumbledore knew more wand-lore than Ollivander. But then again, I haven't read the book in nine years.

Still, I'm pretty sure it never said that Dumbledore knew more about wands that Ollivander.

 

Dumbledore knew more about the Hallows than Ollivander, more like. Prudent, considering he wielded the Elder Wand. While I wouldn't be surprised that Dumbledore was also knowledgeable about general wandlore, I doubt that he had Ollivander beat there.

 

Dumbledore may have known more about a very specific aspect of wandlore.

I work with Emeralds in my day job, and know more about them than most gemologists. But they know way more than me about the rest of gem lore.

 

Harry's wand absorbed some of the power from that of Voldemort during their duel in the fourth book, and spat it back out when facing Voldemort in book seven in the form of golden flames. Now, Ollivander was aware that their wands were twins, yet he could not for his bare life come up with an explanation about why Harry's wand reacted like it did. Dumbledore could. Sure, it was made out to be an educated guess, but still, if Ollivander knew more about the subtle laws of wands than Dumbledore, wouldn't he have reached the same conclusion? Ollivander wasn't stupid, so when Voldemort asked him a way around the twin cores, obviously he had difficulty killing Harry due to Priori Incantatem, so he had no less information on which to theorize than Dumbledore.

 

That incident was about Harry and Voldemort, their characters and relationship. It was about Harry's indomitable will and Voldemort's fear of him. It had very little to do with wand-lore.
Given that, it makes perfect sense for Dumbledore to make a great guess about it as he is the expert on the complicated magic surrounding Harry and Voldemort.

 

The HP lexicon has this to say on the topic:

• When two wands are forced to duel that have core material from the same single creature, the result will be "Priori Incantatem," a display in sequence of the last spells one of the wands cast. Which wand will show the spell effect depends on the willpower of the two wizards involved (GF34, GF36)
• Mr. Ollivander told Voldemort that he could avoid Priori Incantatem by using a different wand without a phoenix-feather core, so he took Lucius Malfoy's elm wand. However, because Harry's holly wand absorbed some essence of Voldemort's power during Priori Incantatem, it blew up the elm wand during the Battle of the Seven Potters (DH4, DH5, DH24,DH35)

From the first point, it seems it really is a question of wand lore. The second implies Ollivander is well aware of the effect - unless he was just fibbing to Voldemort in order to not get killed? His suggestion did fail, after all.

 

Did Olivander know the wands had exchanged essence? Or just that they were brothers.