I remember those rumours from before TFA came out, because there was a lot of interest in Disney apparently looking for WOC in supporting roles, thanks to fan comments (in the same way Phasma became a woman after fan backlash over the lack of female characters). Which would obviously be great, since the only WOC role in TFA that had more than one line got cut out. And now I'm hearing these potential WOC roles might be the ones that are trimmed to make more room for the new trio, which is upsetting if true. I mean, great that we're getting more of the new trio, but surely there must be other stuff that could be cut down to free up space for them?

The rumours did seem to jump to the love interest conclusion because of John Boyega being involved, like you say. In hindsight, I wonder how true that was. I know a lot of fandom seems resistent to Finn/Rey, but I felt like TFA set that pairing up quite well, so I'm skeptical they'd have a different love interest for Finn. Hmmmm, guess we'll have to wait until December 2017 to find out.