Although The Force Awakens was a lot of fun, there are so many frustrating questions left unanswered, and they all relate to events that took place before the story starts, i.e. between Episodes VI and VII. So I'd love if there was some stand-alone film eventually made that covers those events.

The Force Awakens is the first Star Wars sequel where you really feel that you've missed some huge and important events in the overall story-line since the previous one. In the Original Trilogy, you don't feel like you've missed anything between movies; and even with the Prequels which cover a longer period of time, it doesn't feel like you've missed out on any important story elements. They only obvious missing story points are possibly the back-story on General Grevious, and Palpatine getting kidnapped before the start of III. But since Grevious is just a minor villain, and the kidnapping was just a trick set up by Palpatine anyway, it's not too important for the story to see those things onscreen.

Between the Prequel and Sequel trilogies, it also seems like we haven't missed too much. The Empire dominates the galaxy, the remaining Jedi are in hiding, and Luke and Leia are just kids. Episode IV picks up the story when things eventually start happening again.

But between Episodes VI and VII? So many questions, so many mysteries, and so many crucial events that have been glossed over or only briefly referred to with a few lines of dialogue. It may be trying to copy Episode IV, which originally presented itself as part of an imaginary on-going storyline with all this history and back-story that we only get to hear about. But that was originally made as just a stand-alone story with no other films to connect to it, while The Force Awakens is part of a bigger saga, which suddenly has a lot more missing pieces.

Yeah, I was definitely not clear on the state of galactic politics during TFA. In the opening crawl, the First Order is said to have "Risen from the ashes of the Empire". That's fine. We don't need to know the how of it really. After all, we don't learn much about the formation of the Empire in the OT.

The Resistance is said to be supported by the Republic. It's here where a little clarity or more info might have helped. Is the Resistance the military wing of the Republic? If so, that's an odd name for them, not to mention that they look to be hiding out in similar fashion to the Rebels in the OT. Why would the military wing of the Republic seemingly be so overwhelmed and be hiding?

The whole Knights of Ren and Supreme Leader Snoke is also not fleshed out. Granted, the whole concept of the Sith (a word never uttered in the OT) is never really explained in the OT. We just know light side (Jedi)/Dark Side (Empire).

I'm guessing that with so many complaints about how the PT got bogged down in politics (both galactic and Force), Abrams and Kasdan were keen not to let that happen here. And it's also quite possible that these things will be fleshed out bit by bit in the next two films.

There's also the expanded universe (i.e. books). I just read Bloodline (solid BTW), and it gives some insight into the formation of the First Order, the Resistance and Leia's role in it all.

I agree, and would've like to have at least seen the formation of the Knights of Ren and what led Kylo Ren to slaughter all the Jedi that Luke was training.

Knowing that Disney still has a ways to go to recoup their $4.05 billion investment in buying Lucasfilm, I'm sure they'll make and release an in-between Episodes VI and VII spin-off movie to milk some more cash and fill in those story holes.

I'm sure disney has plans to milk this franchise for all it's worth, so i'll wager there will be movies in such a time period as you suggest.