"Tempt fate"? Carrie Fisher was 60, Mark Hamill is 65. While it's not uncommon for people to die at that age, it is also very common for people to live much longer. You're talking as though they approached actors in their mid to late 90s who had known health problems that could die any day now and committed them to three movies over the next six years. By your logic, even a young and healthy actor in their 20s is "at risk" as you never know when they could have an unfortunate accident.
Exactly. You have many actors who passed in their prime like Anton, James Dean, River Phoenix and Heath Ledger, let alone people like Paul Walker or Brandon Lee who died midway through filming.
Hell, going back to the Original Trilogy, Empire Strikes Back had small re-writes to take into account Hamill's injuries he suffered in an accident.