i personally fall on the side of the padme death being stupid. basically, lucas wrote a weak and lame female character in the PT that isn't fit to stand in the shadow of her daughter Leia. thus, instead of a fierce and noble death for this brave woman who believes in democracy, we get death by broken heart. what is this, jane austen???

i also fall on the side of the leia remembering thing as continuity lapse, and one that, as others have said, would have been easy to fix.

and yet, on the whole, i do like ROTS. i hate the first two with an undying passion and generally dislike lucas at this point, but on the PT end, one out of three ain't bad, i guess.