Ripley and Sarah Connor are among my favourite film characters, ever. The issue for me is tone, intention and execution: a cynical attempt at demographic-pandering to maximise audience-share and profits rather than putting the creation of a great story - or indeed, a great female lead - first and foremost. TFA is one of the worst films I've sat through in recent memory and that had very little to do with the protagonist outside of the same poor scripting that plagued every other character in the film. Moreover, the original films were an ensemble effort - a cast of mismatched, well-drawn characters playing up each other's strengths and covering for each other's weaknesses. That seems to be getting sidelined in Disney's new order in favour of identity politics.
I make the effort to reserve final judgement on films until I've actually seen them, but based on a) TFA and b) Rogue One's writers being responsible for After Earth, Twilight and The Golden Compass movie between them, and c) it being helmed by a director who previously reduced Godzilla to a bit-part in his own movie, my expectations aren't high.
Couple that with the fact I've loved Star Wars for as long as I can remember being alive, I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for me to be aggrieved that Disney have chosen to take what I and many other longtime fans loved about the EU and flush it down the drain. You say yourself there were plenty of 'strong female characters' in the old EU, where are they in these films? I'd happily take Emily Blunt as Mara Jade over this.
