This thread is getting incredibly derailed, but I will say this: George Lucas’ original plan (supposedly) was to have Darth Maul be the big bad of the sequels. Ya know, the Sithy guy that you would think was dead without consuming canon content outside of the saga (sound familiar?) Granted, it was explained better for Maul over Palpatine, but I’d reckon just give it some time. So it sounds like either way history went, a Sith-type character from TPM would have been involved.

That being said, would it have been better if they hadn’t gone out of their way to make Snoke and Kylo specifically not Sith? Perhaps. But at the same time, I really enjoyed having Kylo be uninterested in both the Sith and the Jedi and wanting to make something new. So maybe if Palpatine was built up throughout the trilogy better it would have worked nicely.