lucas did a great job of casting those people. he also made it so all of them shared the screen together, whether it was in the cockpit of the millenium falcon, escaping the death star, or celebrating the victory in yavin 4.
it had this whole communal aspect about it, which was very nice. you never felt like the story was necessarily about one person, but about them as a whole. i cant say any of that regarding the TFA.
rogue one was much better than tfa though. gyn was and is so much cooler than rey.