You can see how that might be confusing when you skip ahead 20-30 years. I do agree that they could have provided more context in the films, but the existence of the similarities doesn’t break it for me. I think that really is the weakness, because I think with the right context your audience would say, “Yeah, that makes sense.”
Well amongst all the similarities they wanted is to have that idea of being flung into the action, which in some ways works. I really like the opening with Kylo meeting Max von Sydow. But while the OT dripped little pieces of info so it never feels too alien, TFA needed something like that Death Star conference scene to quickly sum up current affairs. Or even just a quick sound bite here and there to say the Republic is soft and doesn’t want to openly support Leia’s para-military actions.