Jenny Nicholson had a similar idea, where she hears the voices of her friends rather than the Jedi. It might be hard to pull of the Finn connecting with Rey, thing, because there might not be an appropriate shot of Finn that we could into that. But considering that whole sequence is basically all voiceover, it leaves a lot of room to play around with, whether you keep the Jedi voices but alter them slightly, or do something entirely different.

Regarding the spice runner stuff, I’ve really only had two ideas about how to improve it without removing it. Maybe Zori could say, that he was a spice runner “before he left to join the Republic” rather than “Resistance”, since the canon made it clear Poe was a Republic pilot before he joined the Resistance. This could help make it seem like this is something he did in his late teens or early twenties. A long time ago basically.

Or, either Zori or Poe could say that he was simply undercover, working for the Republic. This would help explain why Zori is so hostile and wants to kill him so bad. The tricky part would be finding Oscar or Kerri lines that would fit.