I actually enjoy the PT in so much that I enjoy any non-EU Star Wars materials. The fatal flaws of the PT can never be glossed over. To me, it boils down to 2 points:
Hayden makes the Anakin character wholly unlikeable and portrays him as creepy. You never feel anything over his fall from grace bc you don’t care for him at any point. You can blame George’s dialogue all you want but good actors like Ford/Fisher took some cringe worthy stuff and made it work because of their portrayals of the characters.
AOTC is totally and utterly confusing. George put in plot threads that were never resolved or were leftover from other versions of the script. If George would ever have any humility over the film, I would actually like to see him try a new directors cut of this film that films new scenes, uses alternate takes, updates the CGI and restructures the film in a non-confusing manner. Ask Kathleen Kennedy or any of his other friends for help in fixing this mess.
I don’t mind Jar Jar Binks any more (that doesn’t make him good) and ROTS on the whole is a good watch (despite the slow middle). The battle droids are less annoying bc of Clone Wars. In fact, Clone Wars has changed my opinion on a lot of the characters of the PT.
I’m on a very similar page. I think GL was too subtle. If you catch what he did, the fall to the dark side is both inevitable and believable, but you can’t be so subtle in films. You have to hit the audience over the head. The writer’s adage of show don’t tell is one GL should have used more of in the PT. He needed to show us that Palpatine has been poisoning Anakin since TPM and that he literally took control over him to make him invade the Jedi temple. Instead he throws in a couple of lines telling us little points that add up to that with some sound effects, but it isn’t obvious unless you watch the movie a lot (a hazard of trying to color correct it). There is a lot I didn’t notice until I’d watched it more than 20 times. It increases my enjoyment of the PT now that I see it, but it isn’t good movie making.