They're hosting the party, if you will, they pay the band, so we dance to the music they choose. Second, if you want safe stories, pablum puked out that doesn't make you think, go read Star Trek or some other series. Star Wars has the depth and strength to allow for really dynamic stories. If those are not to your taste, stop reading those stories. All the writers are doing their best to turn out great stories, and I think this series will be full of them.
Readers say that makes the stories boring.
Then we turn around and make everyone fair game, and they don't like that. The key is writing the best story we can, and doing what we have to do to make it the best. I'm not going to compromise my standards of storytelling because I'll make someone nervous. If I'm NOT making them nervous, I'm not doing my job. My career, well, it's gotten me into comics, which is cool, and has allowed me to put away money which means financial worries are covered for about a year.