Most of the iconocism around Vader's character was not there in the original 77 Star Wars; it was suggested by the sequels of the OT, and was definetely the rear engine that drove the prequels.

I've just seen ESB for the sake of it, and it's never implied that Darth Vader is the most powerful being in the galaxy, nor someone the rest of the bad guys look up to (As in having a diegetic fandom). There's even humourous scenes with Vader in Empire.

By what's been seen so far, looks like this ST will inherit the take on the character straight from the PT (Vader's the chosen one, Vader's a seriously very important guy in the galaxy) and potentiate it to the tenth level based on JJ's inner fanboy's desire.

We'll end up having a character who wants to be "as powerful as Vader" but will be as powerful as he, in his delusions, thinks Vader was. Then this character will probably do bigger things onscreen than Vader ever did in the OT (which isn't hard), and thus JJ will end up diminishing the character he originally intended to praise.

Everything in the OT has a nice, appropiate scale. Something tells me the force awakens will fall under the fashion of just absolutely everything in cinema today being "epic". Like making a pose for igniting a lightsabre. Or being ludicrously theatrical when saying "the dark side"; I hope we don't see the force become a licence to do whatever the director wants on screen as much as being an elve was to Peter Jackson in recent Battle of the Five Armies.