I think an excellent edit would be to cut out the back stories of Finn and Poe, at least initially. Maybe open the movie with Rey and her life on Jakku and then she runs into BB8 and then eventually Fin. This would add some mystery as to the characters and what is going on. We do not need to know that Fin is a stormtrooper and instead we discover that. This would not be a bad thing. Try and keep the focus completely on Rey and make Poe and Finn solid supporting roles.
That’s a great idea! Perhaps footage of Finn’s betrayal could be played as a flashback while he’s in a coma in TLJ?
I started playing around with an edit where we pan down from the scroll to Finn’s Tie Fighter escaping and crashing. No Poe until we meet him for the attack on Starkiller. My biggest complaint about all of the new films is Poe disappearing from the crash, only to show up later with a poorly written (only option) excuse for how he escaped Jakku. So I am trying to fix this.
Also no codebreaker and no trip to Cantobite in TLJ. Just a failed attempt to board the First Order Ship. They were monitored all along and captured upon their arrival.