What they could've done, if they had so desired, is simply set Episode 7 at wherever and whenever they were up to in the novels. It would've certainly been possible. The only real problem would've been Chewie's absence, but even that could be communicated to the layman audience with a moment of Han looking at his photograph or something. But they literally could've gotten away with just not bringing up whatever's happened in the 30-40 years since RotJ. It's not like previous stuff hasn't "ignored" what came before. They could've simply "ignored" once more, but instead decided to jettison everything George didn't have a direct involvement with.

I disagree that "the old EU was never considered canon." Everything from Zahn onwards was certainly considered canon. As I recall, it wasn't until 2008 clone wars that the idea of the different "levels" of canon was introduced. That show set such a giant precedent of overwriting EU it was covering the same ground as (in this case the previous clone wars stuff from 2002-2005).