Those are both idiotic reasons.
All of the other Star Wars movies have had strong female leads (comparatively); Rey pretty much fits in the Leia-Amidala mold as far as I'm concerned. Having her be the main protagonist is a nice change. Had
all three suddenly been women, I'd have said it was a strange choice and I might've "gotten" some of the complaints (just as I'd have understood if they'd suddenly gone to three men). As is, I don't see any reason to complain. Skin color wise...Man, I just can't muster the energy to care one way or another what color a character is unless it's important to the story or somehow "abnormal" (as in, black kid from two white parents or vice versa). Heck, aren't we supposed to think Twi'lek are sexy? Brown is definitely not harder to ignore than blue or green