Well Disney wanted to recoup their investment as fast as possible. Which means no time for a plan, and they didn't want to pay to get JJ Abrams out of his contract with Paramount. Whatever plan they had was thrown out by Rian Johnson.

In the end they had to pay the money to get JJ Abrams back anyway. So yeah, in hindsight that's what they should've done from the beginning.

I think if the entire trilogy was made by JJ Abrams, it would've been good. Not great, but good. And really, trying to restart a franchise while giving a satisfying send-off for the older characters while also establishing new characters, "good" was probably the best it could be. And with a good ST, they would be set-up to make some really great movies.

But Rian Johnson wanted to make Citizen Kane set in the Star Wars universe and it really messed everything up.