I like the concept of legacy heroes and I think that JSA was best before Johns left the comic. I consider myself biased in the subject and even more my bias goes against the grain of the general thrust of this thread, so...
I do agree that the 2 status quo changes in Firestorm and Atom make no sense at all. Though the Jason Rusch Firestorm character came before DC's attempt at being more culturally/ethnically/gender/whatever diverse, he was still a minority character that broke the mold of the usual hero. Now Ray Palmer will be the only Atom since they offed Cho. Lil' hint DC, if you want to keep past mandates as plausibly deniable...don't replace more than one "minority (or whatever)" character with a Caucasian one.
Firestorm could easily have stayed with Ronnie as the experienced voice guiding Jason while he stayed mostly in the matrix/mental landscape. If there was need for it you could have Ronnie come to the front and switch places with Jason; you know, like what you did in JASON'S comic?! But, apparently, the best choice was to do a flashback to Ronnie's earlier years and turn him into a jerk frat boy just so there would drama. Jerry Springer type drama, mind you, not entertaining drama.
I didn't read much of the newest Atom, but I DO know he came into the role on his own and with great effort. It's a disservice to the character and the writer to waste a character like that. But, I get it... it's not like villains have to kill other characters to make a come back, right? And it's not like you're sending a bad message by doing things like bringing back Prometheus who kills the Global Guardians (a bunch of foreigners, right? Ew!!), sending a black character to the back of the bus and killing one of your "diversity movement" heroes. Anyway, sorry to get off topic; keep discussing.
