Interesting old ROTJ photo tied to previously leaked TFA concept art.

I agree with what you are saying, but my gut instinct tells me we aren't likely to see Snoke on the bridge of a Star Destroyer mulling over the remains of Darth Vader in this movie. Whereas it makes a lot of sense that Kylo Ren may be in a position to do that, and we have "leaks" that explicitly describe a scene where this happens.
Now, you can choose to ignore or dismiss those leaks, I accept that, but then you still have to find something to back up the idea that this could be Snoke rather than Kylo Ren and, like I said, nothing I see is pointing toward that, whereas there is stuff that points to it being Ren.

I mean, saying that a piece of concept art features "an element" that we know has made it to the finished movie, doesn't mean we can presume the concept as a whole is relevant in the same way.
Hell, I didn't even realise until just recently that Cloud City was merely recycled concept art for what eventually became the Death Star in the first movie.



Concept art is weird stuff; we just don't know the story behind some of what we are seeing here - which I know opens the door for it being Snoke, like you say - but to me it just seems most likely that the artist may have come up with the idea of Vader's melted helmet as part of this visual, and that just happens to be the element that got the thumbs up from this particular sketch...

 

If the Cyborg is in the movie and looks just like his concept art, then the Disney lawyers would have had that locked up in a heartbeat. It would not be all over the Internet and every site that posted it would have been contacted by Disney to remove the image. It's safe to say that the cyborg is not in the movie as drawn in that concept art. If it's Ren with Vaders helm then we know that the concept art got replaced. I doubt its Luke because no beard and all. It could be Snoke, but again I doubt it because of the lack of Disney Lawyer backlash

 

I have some insight into how IMDB works and can say with some certainty from personal experience that an artist's name missing from IMDB before the film has been released really doesn't mean much.

Before a movie is released, IMDB will only contain names from two categories of people. The first category represents higher profile people who have been officially announced for the film. I believe this is handled internally by the IMDB staff. So in the case of Star Wars this category would include the main cast, director, producer, composer, etc. The second category of people are those who are currently working on the film and who submit their own names up to IMDB. This second category is where these concept artists fit in. In order to submit your own name for a credit on IMDB you have to provide them proof that you work in the industry. After they verify your proof, which can take several weeks, or over a month, your name shows up on the site. So it is very likely that there are concept artists who have either not submitted their own names yet, or are waiting for approval.

Once the movie comes out, someone from IMDB updates the names to match the actual credits of the movie, though they will leave anyone who submitted their own name up there even if they don't show up in the credits of the film, and will label them as "uncredited".

 

I think it's what Kylo Ren will become over the course of the trilogy. Most likely not in the first film, probably the third if they're still doing the rhyming thing. We're seeing the origins of a villian here, which is why he's still young, fully human and has a bit of trouble dispatching Rey/Finn at the end of the movie, he isn't a complete badass straight away like Vader was in ANH.

You can't just pull a villain as interesting, iconic and powerful as Vader out of thin air so they're getting round that by showing us his progression. They want him to be the new Vader so I'm confident he'll probably end up a cyborg at some point, it's most likely been mapped out already and I could see that being how he ends up looking, he could still always wear his mask over the top of the cybernetics for battle

 

Christopher Nolan did a pretty good job of pulling great villains out of thin air. You can argue that the Joker and Bane had a long comic history, but the characters in Nolan's films has completely different histories and their own unique personalities (Heath Ledger's Joker and Tom Hardy's Bane) that basically placed them at the top of the all time great villains list. And Ledger and Hardy, under Nolan's direction, only needed one movie to reach epic cinematic villain status.

Not to mention Vader, interesting, powerful and iconic, was himself pulled out of thin air. So I wouldn't say they couldn't do it again.