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You get everyone invested and liking the new republic and then you bring down the theater when Starkiller Base wipes that entire system out.

Instead, we never even saw much less cared about that place and it was a tiny explosion in the sky and then the movie moved on and never talked about it again.

It’s no different than when the Death Star destroyed Alderaan in ANH.

Nope.

Star Wars was a visual milestone, most/all SF movies and shows until then didn't look nearly as good or realistic. Star Trek original series and Space 1999 might have been among the best until then.

The planet-killing concept really hadn't been done onscreen that much. Mostly, it was about invading and conquering, not complete destruction. Whenever that level of power WAS depicted, it was from a faceless alien force, not humans.

In SW universe, the Empire was all. Alderaan was part of the Empire. Remember, Luke wanted to submit his application to the Academy; if Uncle Owen hadn't been a hardass, Luke would have been flying Tie Fighters by then.
The Republic had been mentioned as ruling, and had been supplanted by a militaristic Nazi government.
Also in Star Wars, a big deal was made that this had never happened, and it was imperative that this must be stopped. Like if the US had eventually become Nazi, and decided to nuke Virginia without reason, just for effect.

Vader and later the Emperor advanced the Dark Side of the Force concept, but at the time, the true enemy was the unchecked and massive military might of the Imperial Fleet and their willingness to "push the button" on its' own citizens.

Doing it AGAIN in TFA is just rinse-and-repeat, not a new and previously unseen event. And it was done by an outside faction, not by a dictatorship against it's own hapless people, so it loses that angle. TFA is more like the German blitzkrieg against Czechoslovakia; blast the leadership and take over the territory.