I'm confident Mara or Thrawn will return ... in some form

The Vong were pretty out there, but in retrospect there's something to be said for having a villain that breaks the pattern of "something something dark side" in triangle ships. Thrawn was good for that among dozens of other things but he still had the triangle ships lol.

As for Jacen, I again look at it as "that's how Anakin should've been". If you think Ren is a take on Jacen, then I guess Jacen's a take on Anakin. They even have him Jacen expressing disgust at Anakin's selfishness and immaturity when he learn the real reason behind his fall. Clone Wars making Anakin more sympathetic isn't a solution of the problem, it's just another way to underline it. Pretty much all prequel EU works contain some level of "fix fic'ing" to make the characters more relatable and understandable from their movie drone origins.

The prequels expanded the world and feel of Star Wars beautifully but failed utterly at populating it with meaningful characters we can relate to and care about, and in so doing, destroyed any chance of pulling off the character story they were trying to tell. A New Hope Redux on the other hand gives us some nice characters we want to spend more time with but does fuck all in terms of world building. We get new planets but they're the same desert, jungle and a mix of frozen forest at the end. Useless. The Legacy of the Force series on the other hand more or less had it all: an overarching conflict that affected the state of the galaxy and that the reader understood and could get involved in, but also strong relatable characters we've come to know and love. And then Karen Traviss murdered one because she's a bitch.

I'm not going to say the series was perfect, but I guess we just like different things in Star Wars. Personally my ranking of books in the EU would be:

• Anything Thrawn/Timothy Zahn
• Bane Trilogy
• The Old Republic novels (except Annihilation which was kind of meh, but I'd chalk that to personal opinion since I'm used to Drew Karpyshyn writing Force users)
• The post Vong EU series

Misc Prequel/in-between books scattered throughout (for example Shatterpoint was pretty good, as was Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter

It was a rash decision on Disney's part, but one I ultimately agree with.
The old EU was cluttered and had so much fucking bullshit (The Yusung Vong, Darth Krayt, Talking Ewoks, Galen Marak/The Apprentice/Starkiller/Darth Icky, Weird hate-boner for Darth Vader, Dark Empire, etc) that there wasn't much anyone could do with it even if Disney hadn't bought it. Clone Wars would've run it's course of 7 seasons and that'd have been it (Which would've been ok, but I'd prefer a new trilogy to look forward too, and Rebels is getting to the conclusion of Ahsokas story we all wanted with the season finale, Her confrontation with Darth Vader).

We lost some great stuff (The Thrawn Trilogy, Kenobi, Dark Forces-Jedi Academy, KOTR, The 2003 Clone Wars Miniseries, Darth Plagueis, etc). But there's still respect for what came before. Marvel and Del Ray are reprinting the comics and books under a legends label, and inspirations and elements are getting brought over into the new canon.

Also George Lucas can no longer chime in with stupid announcements and facts anymore. Which is a win for everyone.

And on a Side note, I must say:

Today marks the beggining of Filming for Star Wars:Episode VIII

It was a stupid ass decision that I, and others will never forgive. The EU was doing just fine for itself and none of the things you listed are particularly objectionable (except the talking Ewok bit, that I know nothing about). While it's true some things are on the silly side they could and were easily ignored and everyone pretty much understood and ignored them, much like we do for Jar-Jar and midichlorians, none of which are going away.

Nuking the whole thing was a piss-poor response and Disney can collectively eat two billion dicks in gross for what they've done. Say what you will about Lucas but at least he never stooped to this level. He didn't give a shit one way or another, he just did his own thing and if it overrode something, it was our job to roll with it. It was excellent and it worked. And even if he can't relate to people well enough to write them believably and even if he was almost as commercial at least he still tried to create something new. As long as someone else writes the dialogue, directs the actors and sets up the shots I'd much rather have him at the helm than any of the Disney hacks that have made these decisions.

And Legends doesn't mean shit. We just saw how much "respect" Disney has for the EU or anything else that isn't the original movie and thus 150% guaranteed to bury them in money. I'm buying up what books I can that were printed before the nuking, since I refuse to pay a discontinued penny for anything with "Legends" on it and I'm cashing out. My Star Wars is sadly over. I want nothing to do with Mickey's shitty reboot. I'll probably get dragged to the main films because even third world African kids will probably see them but other than that, I'm done.

No need to get this worked up man (Yes. I know this is me saying it lurkers).

Ewoks The Battle for Endor (Not to be confused with the Battle OF Endor from Return of the Jedi). I preemptively apologize for the upcoming brain hemorrhage you'll have.

You know, people like to bring up Midichlorians and put some weird emphasis on it. The Jedi Path describes them in an interesting way.

Sure it was stupid idea on Lucas' part, but that's a nice perspective to have.

The second Bane book really put me off the entire trilogy. It was so bad.

Of course. Battle For Endor is a sequel. Watch Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure first

The quote comes from The Jedi Path. A Jedi handbook with comments from various characters in it. It's a good read.
It's in a series along with The Book of the Sith, The Bounty Hunter Code, and The Imperial Handbook.
It's considered Legends because Luke mentions Mara Jade and Kyle Katarn in it. But other than that I'd say it's fair game.

I must admit, I watched the two of the Ewok movies.

And I'm still alive... (Barely)

Just need to get through the Holiday Special and I'll be Immortal.