Episode 7 was little more than a fan-service circle jerk. Now, I'm not saying that that's a bad thing. I like the movie for what it is, but honestly do you think Disney was going to let anyone get too clever with the plot or characters? After the fan reaction to 1-3 they knew they had to play it safe and that is exactly what they did. Were the parallels too strong? Probably, but that doesn't mean it's a bad movie. Or even a bad star wars movie (it does have its flaws though).
Proving that they weren't going to fuck things up even more (after spending a billion dollars) was not an option with this one. Getting the old school fans back on board while getting new fans involved was the plan and it worked. There's another Star Wars movie coming out every year for at least the next 4-5 years. Only episodes 8 and 9 are going to further the overall timeline. Rogue One takes place between RotS and ANH, most likely the Kenobi and Fett/Solo films will as well.
They're following the Marvel model to a T here. Take plots and characters that fans already know, make movies out of them, then once you've proved you can do that right start branching into new plot territory. I expect to see a lot of fun stuff in 8, even with the cyclical nature of Star Wars.