I mean it didn't really pose any questions about Snoke. The questions posed about Snoke were what wasn't known about him. And it's why I hate 9 so much. All we had to know about Snoke in the context of a story about Rey and Ren is that he was Ren's master. We didn't know jack squat about Palpatine in the OT. He was only referred to as the Emperor. He was later expanded upon. I think what TFA did well was start to set up a new trilogy but getting the important characters front and center. Killing off Han Solo was necessary and aside from it being a "waste" of having him in the film I wish it happened earlier. I wish they killed off Han earlier on.
ANyway the issue with 7 was the writing painted Johnson in a bit of a corner as it asked a lot of questions, and important questions, that he had to resolve. ANd he did, unlike JJ he resolved his questions. You leave ep 8 with a clear picture of the state of the story and universe. That doesn't happen in 7.
Honestly, I think you can put episode 8 as basically a stand alone film and it's fine. That's why it's special. You could watch the OT and 8 and not really feel left out. It hits all the important beats, Kylo killed Han, his father, and is Leia's son. Rey is a nobody who's destiny is connected to Kylo Ren, all these things are in the movie.
I mean I can understand people who are disappointed in the sequel trilogy and for me that falls on 9. If 9 wasn't a ****show attempt at Endgame, then the sequel trilogy would have been much better off. The plot holes in episode 9 are ****ing miserable.
So what you're saying was, because Palps had no backstory in the OT, we should have just played the same tune again and Snoke not have any backstory... I think the Sith Lord that turned a Skywalker child to the darkside and made him his lieutenant, people would like to know about it.
9 has plenty of plotholes, but it's basically fan service. So I grade it as fan service. My only gripe is that it wasn't MORE FAN SERVICE. Episode 7 pretends to be a fresh new movie when it's really not. It was the safest possible movie Disney could have made and they were rewarded with it. Make a safe movie and destroy box office records, or not play it safe and maybe not get a billion.