If the OT is “WWII in space”, they could’ve built the new trilogy as the “Cold War in space”, with two factions remnants of the old Republic as the “superpowers”. In staying true to this Cold War setting, we would’ve had less battles between armies, but more espionage and information control, leading to a completely different kind of plot and scenes from the OT.
You still want a fight between light and dark jedi? They could’ve wrote that these factions are unofficially lead/protected by jedi and dark jedi, or have their struggle be the actual cause of this Cold War (but I guess this one would be too similar to the PT, in a way).
Completely new characters, with only very few from the old cast making a return, mostly as cameos.
New concepts: the OT had the Force and the empire, the PT had the clones and the council, so it would’ve been the right time to introduce us to new concepts (like the infamous crystals, or borrowed sci-fi concepts) and build the plot around them.