Out-of-story, the audience is probably more familiar with the Vulcans than with the Andorians.

That does make sense, although I have the vague memory that Andorians were more significant in the TOS era (but of course never as significant as Vulcan). The in-story reasoning explains the reaction of Michael, but less so the rest of the crew. It's possible that I missed something early on, or maybe it'll come up later. I'll be curious to see if they ever deal with it.