does no cgi Leia be a sign of her death in Episode 8?

It's not like the writers arbitrarily decided to kill her off for dramatic reason though, she died in real life. If a cgi/stand in Leia is ruled out, they don't have a lot of choices for where they go with her character.

They might as well kill her off, but they can use it to further the story along if they get an antagonist to be responsible for it, rather that just letting her disappear, or something like that.

The fans need closure for her character, just like we all do in real life when we lose someone we care for.

I don't know how they'll handle it, but I'm confident that the fans won't like whatever decision is made.