I very much agree with DrDre about Snoke. It seems the best way to follow his character up after TFA while ‘subverting’ it as TLJ just loves to do would be to make him into a poser as Kylo was set up to be. That’d have been perfect. The FO was distinct from the Empire because they were a shitty derivative of them, much like in real life. Let Snoke fit in with that, especially since all we’d seen was a hologram.
Let the FO be a threat due to their radicalized fringe extremism rather than taking over the whole galaxy over the course of a week or so.
I’m sure RJ had good intentions while writing the story and script, but the finished film in isolation would imply to me that he was just not interested in carrying on the themes and setups the previous film gave him to work with.