Looking forward to revisiting this. During the theatrical run came away rather disappointed as it felt overstuffed and with some of the worst of J.J.'s sci-fi traits that drive me up the wall (a decision to ignore trivial things like 'time' and 'distance' chief amongst them). On the other hand I'm hoping some distance will let me shift away from my general exhaustion with the franchise or, more specifically, with the fandom. Never known any other group who profess to love a product so determined to tear down anything new and different, even Doctor Who isn't this bad!
Personally I'm not sure I'd agree with the previous movies differing tones "preventing this sequel trilogy from ever feeling like it had a cohesive, unified voice ". I mean, A New Hope and Empire are pretty damn different from each other and yet Return of the Jedi managed well enough. For me the problem was they set up that wonderful thread with Rey not being a known name and went to great lengths to crowbar open the possible horizon of the star wars universe... then ran right back to what they knew. Frustrating as hell, especially when the animated side has shown what can happen if you step away from the expected path. Again, hoping it sits a bit better on home viewing, fingers crossed!
Difference is that nobody decided to try and retcon the events in Empire and 'put Star Wars back on track'. Otherwise Return would have likely been (even more) messy. You're right, since the original film was never written as anything more than a standalone feature, everything after that had to build and expand the lore, but doing so in a cohesive, unified way is key.
You're not my father after all, wouldn't have really gone down very well.
Agree on the animated front, Clone Wars review is coming soon.