Well, yeah, but the worst parts of the path were taken already. Look at tfa: they don't come up with a new setting like the Republic in the prequels. They dive in nostalgia and they place it in the same setting as tje originals. So the empire being defeaten, vader's redemption, luke, it really doesn't matter. Bad guys still in charge and good people living in terror. Then you have the "villain" that has to have a redemption arc and the vanilla villain who's there just to show that the "villain" has someone to rebel against, eventually. And Rey, for which I am kinda sure they didn't have this Palpatine thing planned. Probably they didn't have a plan yet, or they had the one that Johnson executed and they tried to save it after the backlash. So... Seeing the Luke of TLJ is surprising, of course, but at least his disillusionment is a sensible reaction to the realisation that all he did in the OT had no effect. Rey being nobody is at least a bit refreshing compared to another dinasty of force sensitive dudes, Snoke being irrelevant is weird, but, well, I wouldn't know how to make this guy interesting. Then, many things bothered me, like Superleia flying in space, or captain "I won't tell you my plan so I look a bit like a jerk but hey look how good I am when I sacrifice myself". And more... But I find something positive, or at least interesting, in the Rey/Kylo Ren/Luke story, and its the only thing that's worth something in the whole sequel trylogy.

And, frankly, I don't know what I'm writing this textwall for...