But I guess Mark Hamill envisioned playing an older Luke, who perhaps dies and then reappears as the "ghost of" (Obi-Wan-style). 
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but yea, it didn't occur to me until you said it that Luke could still at least be alive when Episode VII starts and then get killed at some point and come back as a force ghost. The only reason I brought it up is that Luke still hasn't been killed off in the novels, and while I don't actually bother to read the novels I do keep up with them. Everything I've heard leads me to believe that the current authors are pretty much ignoring any huge impact from the New Jedi Order novels in terms of what happens to the galaxy in the years after the OT, and that series has been the main sticking point with people who argue that any possible sequels could never fit into the continuity established by the novels.
The only post-ROTJ stuff I've read is Heir to the Empire and a couple of the NJO novels. Those last two turned me off not only because I couldn't quite get past the idea of there being another galaxy besides the one in which the whole story takes place, but also because I'd skipped past just about everything between ROTJ and Vector Prime (with the sole exception of HTTE). Since then I've come to terms with it. I figure their intention was to tell a story that could only be told in the medium of novels. Not everything Star Wars gets the Shadows of the Empire treatment after all. Apparently Bantam would've done the story differently (for example, the invaders would not have been from outside the galaxy) and Dark Horse would have covered part of it also, but plans changed once Del Rey got the license.
My ultimate point is just that the NJO seems relatively inconsequential in the grand scheme of making VII, VIII and IX. Whether or not they'll ever actually get made is another matter.
