I'm going to preface my reply by saying that you and I will have to agree to disagree. I'm more than happy to intelligently debate Abrams suitability, but I don't think I'll ever be able to come around to approving this decision. I'm always interested in knowing what other people think so with that being said, launch debate!
Brad Bird was the industry favorite for the director's chair before Abrams was announced. Why, I have no idea. He has done great work with Pixar, granted, but I don't think he would have been right for Star Wars. I'm glad he wasn't chosen even if I don't like who they ultimately settled on.
To be perfectly honest I was really hoping that either Matthew Vaughn or Jon Favreau would take up the reins. There was considerable speculation that Star Wars VII was why Vaughn dropped out of directing X-Men: Days of Future Past. Combine Vaughn's or Favreau's directing talents with, say, Larry Kasdan as screenwriter and I would have been deliriously happy. I still hold out how that Kasdan might be somehow involved.
And if not Vaughn of Favreau then I was hoping that they might give someone new and relatively untested a go. After all, when Lucas directed Star Wars Episode IV the only other credits he had to his name were THX 1138 and American Graffiti. No one in the industry expected his little project to be nearly as successful as it was then and still is today. I would much rather that they had given someone who truly has a passion for the franchise over someone who has basically been groomed by Spielberg to turn out more of the same overly polished, CGI-laden, Hollywood popcorn.
(Insert: The only two directors would have been worse for this project (again, in my opinion) are M. Night Shyamalan and Joss Whedon
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Going back to Abrams, I really don't think he is anything more than a product of the Hollywood machine. For me, personally speaking, all of his projects lack a certain heart. His Star Trek film may have been financially successful but it wasn't Star Trek. As someone who grew up immersed in that universe (thanks to my father who was an avid Trekkie) his film didn't feel like it had anything to do with Star Trek other than the names of places, people, and things. None of his films are ever evocative or moving in my opinion. That's not to say that I don't give his films their due course. I have lined up at midnight for a number of his movies and come out each time with a definite feeling of deflated disappointment.
And what worries me more than anything else is that he might tap Michael Giacchino to do the score. I won't do the knee-jerk Internet fanboy (er, fangirl) thing and say that I'll refuse to see it if it doesn't feature a John Williams score, but I will say that it will never be a proper Star Wars film in my mind without it
Who would you have selected for the honor?