Saga Aliens (and creatures, droids, tech) in the Disney Era

Mods, move as appropriate, but I wasn't sure where to post this otherwise as it pertains to the new films (etc.) as a whole, not divided into ST and Anthology.

The alien species (and other designs) of the Disney Era of SW seem to come up in a lot of other threads, so I thought an overall thread to discuss them might be interesting. I'll start with my own take, which doesn't seem unusual:

1) Alien and creature design in the new films is uniformly excellent and largely conforms with the overall OT and PT aesthetic.

2) Nevertheless many of us feel that the lack of familiar and abundant species from both the PT and OT, aside from particular individuals and a very few other exceptions, is a bit strange if not slightly off-putting.

3) The fact that non-film Disney Era sources like REBELS, the comics, and novels still rely heavily on familiar OT and PT species makes this even a bit more conspicuous.

Droids, ships and tech don't seem to face this same divide, as every Disney Era film has featured familiar designs, and in some instances even been criticized for lack of originality in those areas, whereas it seems the opposite with alien species. Again, this comes up a lot in other threads, so here's a place to hash it all out.