I think legends handled it okay, that the battle of yavin was the tipping point, but the empire still had remnants that needed to be countered by the New Republic. And the New Republic has its own problems, but faces an entirely different threat than the empire too.

Whereas with the new movies, they just hit the reset button back to episode four, rather than developing on the trajectory in interesting ways, which would have given Luke's actions and the original trilogy more weight.