A few weeks ago, Del Rey announced 3 re-printings from the Legends universe. Though the company has stated this does not mean NEW Legends stories are to follow, it does lead to some wild speculation as to why they would do this in the first place.
Del Rey has been reprinting the old stories under the Legends banner for many years now and sales have been relatively good through the evidence that they've continued to reprint Legends for so long.
Since 2013 it seems every other year we hear the rumor that Del Rey is stopping all reprints of Legends. And every other year a rep from Del Rey comes out and denies the speculation.
Though it is true Del Rey has stopped reprints in other countries, in the US most Legends titles are easily found in a book store near you or are available to order online. There hasn't been a shortage of reprints when it comes to Legends.
So why make this announcement? Why have an "Essentials Collection"? And most importantly, why now?
Some people think this means Del Rey will ONLY be reprinting these novels and stop reprinting the others. Leading to access to fewer books from the Legends Universe being re-released.
The flip side of that argument is that this means there ARE plans to bring the Legends universe back as an "alternate universe" and Del Rey wants to make sure they market the old stories for newer fans to come in.
Both cases are plausible but at the moment we'll just have to wait and see what this all truly means....in time.