ZkinandBonez said:
The only big critique I personally have of DE I is how oddly it’s placed within the overall canon.
Veitch wrote Dark Empire with the intention of it occuring immediately after ROTJ, but Zahn didn’t want to reference Dark Empire in the Thrawn trilogy, so Lucasfilm forced Veitch to move Dark Empire to after the Thrawn trilogy. The timeline should have been ROTJ - Dark Empire - X-Wing - Thrawn.