I personally really like Dark Empire, and the fact that it didn’t really acknowledge Zahn’s books outside of the crawl is fine with me. More time spent making an interesting and different story, rather than spend too much time trying to connect everything.
I used to like Dark Empire as well. It did feel like jumping the shark at several points, but it had a very nice pulp comic feel. I also have to admit I am not a huge fan of Zahn. Always felt like his stories were really smart, but ultimately not that exciting.