I believe everyone is missing the point here. The announcement has said there is no more EU. There is canon and there is Legends. Essentially everything we have seen as the EU is now Legends. Canon now consists of the films, CW TV series, Rebels TV series, the upcoming Darth Maul comic and everything else coming forward, essentially starting in 2015. Everything else is dead and gone.
Actually, I don't think you're totally seeing the point Ed, but I'm actually not even disagreeing with some of what you're saying totally, but feel you're reading way too much into this statement on the matter.
EU was NEVER canon, and that's my point. There was NEVER a hierarchy to it... It was always what Lucas said, and the rest was bunk if he decided. LFL was pretty clear on this, as was Lucas himself.
LFL officially called the EU "The Official Continuity" (Been over this a billion times, so if anyone disagrees it's on you to google this yourself... It's everywhere), which encompassed anything outside the films. They tried to crowbar it all together unless it contradicted the established canon of the time... IE: the films and what Lucas was saying "This is, and this isn't" himself.
You think they did a good job, I think they were cash grabbing with a ton of EU and were stepping all over each other. Sometimes little stuff, sometimes bigger stuff. I found half of the EU pretty ****** though, personally... It's neither here nor there though, as EU is what it always was, and appears to still be the same now.
You can call it "Legends", "Old Stories That May Not Be True", "Lucas Era EU", whatever... But that still means it's just EU as EU always was... It's there, but as the official statement said, they'll draw elements from it, and all the future stuff going forward CAN draw from it possibly (I assume they'll have a bit more of a tight control on it than LFL did however), and this stuff can all be overwritten at any time because they (Disney) don't want painted into a corner creatively because that's what seemingly half of existing EU would do to them. Makes sense, and tough to argue with. Disney paid billions, and doesn't want hamstrung by stories they don't want to make into movies, etc. They want to make their OWN money.
There is nothing in that press release though saying, "______ is 'out' now" or anything like that... It's obvious though much will be overwritten going forward. But not yet. Looking at where they're starting Episode VII timeline wise, for example, The Truce At Bakura may be a story that totally fits, and as such, it's still a story I think fans of it (all 3) could say "Well that fits so I still consider it part of the universe, blah blah blah". Personally I think it's a bad story, so I never considered it part of my Star Wars world, but whatever.
Canon has expanded now, going forward, which to me is the far larger headline in that story... Canon was never anything but the films, now it's much, much more. That's the thing I'd say I am not a fan of seeing happen. Who wants ****** stories shoveled down their throat? There has been so much BAD Star Wars written since the early 90's that it was appreciated that EU could basically be ignored by any fan as part of "their Star Wars" experience... as if rules about discussing a fictional universe are something normal people would want to deal with anyway. 
I think the outbursts that "EU is purged! EU is dead!", and so on, are really exaggerated though. It should be "Canon is Expanding and May Overwrite Your Favorite EU Story". EU being called Legends doesn't really change it at all from what it already was though... Something that wasn't canon, just part of what LFL called the "Official Continuity" (Leeland Chee's words)... It's still something that if it fits great for the people who liked it I suppose. And if not, it's kaput (and that's a now evolving and growing thing). It'll be interesting to see what elements they carry over, what they drop.
Obviously a lot is on the way out though. NJO looks pretty much on the chopping block entirely right now.
Like the press release said though, elements of the EU will be available to anyone developing new stuff, so who knows what good things people liked could turn up. I like that Filoni has an affinity for the old RPG material because I do too, and he's putting a bit of that into Rebels (already). It's now a new, ever-changing world. Star Wars hasn't been that way for a while, so it's at least interesting if nothing else.
I believe Leeland Chee would disagree with you. As I stated before, Lucas had always said that he could rewrite anything he wanted to. In 2000 Lucasfilm hired Leland Chee to oversee Star Wars continuity. At this point, different levels of canon were created. There was G, C, S and N canon. T canon was added with the Clone Wars series.
G - George Lucas canon - this is the movies and anything stated by Lucas.
T- Television canon - at the time it included the Clone Wars series from Cartoon network and was to include the "live action series" that never materialized.
C - Continuity canon - this is the bulk of the old EU. Novels, games, comics, etc. This is where most timeline/continuity errors would occur.
S - Secondary canon - this is where they dumped stuff that didn't fit, like older pre-2000 novels and such.
N - Non canon - items like the infinities comics series, alternate paths in video games, and deleted scenes in movies that would contradict what happened in the actual film.
I never stated that everything in the EU was canon, but that there were levels as set out by Lucasfilm which could be contradicted at any point by Lucas or Lucasfilm. The Clone Wars series did that several times.
What the announcement does mean, like it or not, is that the old EU is now considered Legends and the above levels of canon are essentially gone. Going forward is would be canon (which would combine G, T, and C levels of old) and Legends (which would combine S and N and dump the old C level stuff here). Items from Legends can be used and elevated to canon, but until they are, they are just stories. I don't think we are going to see much of that, especially with post ROTJ era stories. Characters like the Solo kids, Mara Jade, and the young Jedi Knights are most likely gone.
A lot of what you stated about Disney and canon going forward is what I stated in my previous post. While I have enjoyed the EU as a whole over the years, I do like the idea of everything actually counting going forward. I generally don't like retcons that were required to explain contradictions. The Clone Wars were a separate mess that Leeland Chee had stated that they were waiting until after the series ended to attempt to make everything fit, which is now a moot point.
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