Rides of the "loop" variety have greater capacity for throughput obviously. I also think they nearly always make better rides, because it forces designers to really make the environments pop to make up for the lack of direct action and - because the "loop" requires scenes with figures to be absolutely boiled down to their true essence - really come up with more on-point, creative staging. Timing rides tend to really rack the focus on riders and what is happening to them, and then we get a lot of silly, unnecessary dialogue and overly plotty nonsense and show scenes that require so much unrealistic action that the only way to solve them really involves a lot of screens which, ironically, make it more fake.
Disney (and the industry) has gone the other way, of course, thinking that characters are what is needed to sell rides instead of settings. Hence the Attractions Magazine post about how the ride is going to go not really surprising me at all. I think it would have been a better ride if the story were just we were taking a tour of a Star Destroyer and wandering through sets with lots of alien critters and robots and people populating the ship that are just doing their jobs; but for some reason we have to add a danger element to it. I don't know why, since those elements are always the least convincing and serve to really take you out of the experience rather than bring you closer into it, but somehow modern Imagineering is convinced this is the way to go.
