Well this rumor puts the other developments lately in perspective. If Iger and Abrams are going at it already, it's no wonder they've already lined up a different director for 8 and 9. If Abrams gets his way (because as the director, he could slow it down to the point that it just can't recover) he may force Disney to hold off until 2016.
But with so many teams working on these movies (especially the first stand-alone and Ep 8 ) they can keep their December openings for the franchise going forward. If they left Abrams to do all the sequels, then they'd be locked in to him starting 8 only after he finishes 7, but they have sidestepped that by potentially getting 8 up and running before 7 is completed. A shrewd business move, and one that is lending weight to this new rumor for me.
That means 2 movies in 2016, with the standalone landing only six months after episode 7, further "punishing" Abrams by giving his film the least amount of promotional time. Of course that also punishes the profits for everyone, but there is not much that can be done about that if Abrams is determined to see a summer release.
As for changing the script to work around Ford? Yikes. That doesn't sound like good storytelling.