For me cloning is always such a lazy plot device for bringing people back or retconning/fixing things. I mean, unless the movie specifically deals with the topic of cloning (such as Moon, The Island, etc.) it just comes off as tropy.
Agreed. That said, Lucas managed to find a way to use cloning that is neither morally interesting nor a crutch for recovering from a bad storytelling decision. Not sure why he did that, but he did.