Adjusted for inflation, Star Wars (1977) is still the fourth highest grossing film of all time. But beside that, as BB8 mentioned, just compare merchandise sales between OT vs ST. Of course, that doesn't account for the drop in quality or the over saturation of the market. We've been over it before on this forum: the old farts who would die for the OT are the ones who have the money, not the kids.
Just because I prefer to have the ST doesn't mean it was a smart move. Having it be set in the OT with OT would've been an absolutely bigger success, no doubt in my mind. While my own personal experience is subjective, I'd be willing to bet that, if polled, more people would say they dreamt of flying an X-Wing as a child than dreamt of flying the Falcon.
Sure, I agree with a lot of yours points. Merch sales are down. Toy sales are down. Kids aren't that into toys, period, not just SW, though. As a collector, I personally sold off all of my PT era toys several years ago and focus mostly on the OT, though I do have a number of ST figures, as well.
SW is just now one of several major franchises commanding kids' attention these days. Marvel is arguably far more popular and is considered more modern, more hip than the 40+ years old SW. How many kids are really into the stuff their parents grew up with? TLJ, a movie I love, is arguably the least toyetic movie in the franchise and, despite being a great film, managed to rub some of the biggest toy-hoarding nerds the wrong way.
People keep coming back to Batuu as a concept. Why not this, why not that? I've thought about it a lot, I've read comments, talked to friends. I mean, there is literally one and only one ripped-from-the-films alternative that could possibly work - Mos Eisley.
But Mos Eisley was featured in, what, 15 minutes of one film? And what would that give you? The Falcon and the cantina, which Batuu already does. (I'm not for the "let's have Luke's house and jabba's palace AND the cantina all right next to each other", as that approach would have been sloppy and lazy.)
Even if you made a down-to-the-toothpick exact replica of Mos Eisley, it still wouldn't give you that Wizarding World experience that everyone keeps unfairly comparing GE to.
ALL of the Harry Potter movies take place in Hogsmeade/Hogwarts. So that same "I'm walking in the footsteps of the characters" feeling wasn't going to happen. At least not in the same way or to the same degree. SW is a different kind of series. You never stay in one place, it's all about journeying to new planets and having new adventures.
For my money, that makes Batuu the most "Star Wars" concept they could have come up with. Going somewhere new that still felt like it existed in the same universe as what we've already seen.
(That said, I certainly DID feel that "wow, I'm really here!" vibe outside and inside the Falcon. That's where they meet you halfway. And I'm sure RotR will evoke similar feelings. The cantina did for me, too, even though it's not the "same" cantina. So, I think it's straddling the line of new/old quite well. YMMV.
