I don't pity Disney and the directors on this. If you want to tap into the enthusiasm (cough, cough, wallet...) of the fan base, then I have no sympathy for you when the fans are upset over continuity and treatment of fan favorite characters.
Re old characters: Han was even more of a loser than before ep4. Leia has lost battles and wars for decades, and now her name doesn't even call in help anymore. Luke basically turned into old Yoda, without the clarity. And then Han's death is barely mentioned by Luke, Ackbar dies off screen. Chewy isn't doing much. Theoretically I like some of the directions taken, but having all of them not progressing/going backwards is such a shame. My god throw the fans a bone, let one of the old characters be a bad ass!
Re Snoke, new order, knights of Ren: We had little back story for the emperor, princess Leia, and Jedi knights in the original trilogy, but those words paint vague concepts that we can hang on to. The rise of a new darkness that takes over what every viewer perceived as a victory at the end of ep6 needs a bit more context. Especially given that they handed our older heroes losses and humiliation, just hand waving away "eh, they are not important" is unsatisfying.
Re force powers: sure the new stuff is exciting, but this is basically power creep in DLC/card games. The new generation is doing way more powerful things than the previous masters did, with way less training. This creates a lot of continuity issues.
Re state of the universe: I remember how excited I was in the first 5 minutes of TFA, simpy because the possibilities of where they take the universe was endless. Are the empire forces now the resistance? What form of government was formed in place, and what problems did they face after the war? What other evils will they face? What are our heroes doing after the war? What new characters are introduced in the time frame? Turns out, after 2 movies, we are basically back to ep4 situation. This is the biggest shame. It's the same fight (even same death star last time), our heroes are very lame (why couldn't ghost Yoda have taught Luke the same lesson in this movie at any point off screen in the last decade?) , and the only new character from those decades was Poe, who has the same character flaw as Anakin? Man, if a director wants to tell stories in that old setting, go take a spin off film like Rogue One, why reset the entire universe?
I can't even tell which director did more damage? JJ set up too many questions that Johnson didn't want to answer, and then the two combined to kill off all major characters from the past (rip Carrie), even using up the Yoda cameo here. So they are getting their wish of tossing the old aside. We'll see how well the new universe fares. At this point I don't hold the current trilogy any higher than, say, the Fast and Furious universe. But I, over 30, as well as the CAG guys, are not the target audience anymore. I need to ask some teens how they feel about the films (and Porgs, and BB8, urgh....).
Ah well, we'll live, and Episode IX will probably be better. 
