I think it’s more calculated than that. Why write new characters when you can use old ones? Less risk and more brand recognition. A mixture of TCW cameos and old characters from books is potent stuff. Is the Thrawn trilogy really the place to start now, or is it just a logical next step in their methodical mining of the old EU? As for deepfakes… yeah I have a bad feeling about this.
I think it’s safe to predict that within 10 or 20 years, it will be possible to create an entire Hollywood-quality live action movie entirely using digital tools on a laptop. Then the floodgates will open and a trillion fan films of every possible permutation of Star Wars lore will engulf the Internet. The only difference between the endless stream of fan films (some of which will be of better quality than the official versions) and the official ones is that creators of fan films will not be able to profit directly from their films, because they do not hold a license to the IP. But fans will do it out of passion anyway, especially as technology improves to the point where a live-action Hollywood production can be digitally created with a simple script and some basic prompting. Then the entertainment industry will panic, and scramble to introduce regulation preventing this, but ultimately fail to meaningfully stop it.
But hey at least somebody can recreate the theatrical OT in 4K.