If the sequel trilogy had flipped the script, it could have been something really special. The New Republic as a chaotic mess of organised crime and corruption, beset by warlordism and alien mafias; the New Order as a nostalgic reactionary movement seeking to reimpose order on the Galaxy, drawing on the disaffection generated by New Republic's structural weakness. This framework would have enabled engagement with the tensions between idealism and pragmatism, the pitfalls of revolutionary change in the wake of a catastrophic civil war. It would have been especially powerful if the original expanded universe storyline of extragalactic invasion had been followed. Palpatine saw what was coming, hence the militarization of the Galaxy, the death stars, etc. The New Republic would face the challenge of uniting the Galaxy against this threat, and would have had to reconcile itself with the New Order to do so. Doing this while hanging on to the original ideals would have presented a profound moral dilemma. Instead we got a Mary Sue lightsabering her way through an incoherent pastiche.
