Before the dark times…before the prequels…I remember that Palpatine and the Empire were supposed to be so racist that they seldom utilized elevated alien species to high ranks. This accounted for the lack of aliens in any Imperial vessel in the OT and made characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn seem even cooler and more impressive. When the PT negated that with the characters shown here, I was tremendously disappointed. It took away from the evil of the Empire.
This – mostly. I kinda like the idea of Palpatine having some “Uncle Toms” doting on him, though.