I wonder how much that has to do with being a beneficiary of the Clone Wars tv show, where it was largely able to resuscitate the characters and provide a more compelling war narrative than the movies.
Anecdotally I know someone who just recently saw TCW and watching it made her like the PT less so than before. She’s not a hardcore fan, I introduced her to SW with the original 3 years ago and she slowly started liking the franchise more and more, but she’s definitely not a hardcore fan. She said the show feels like it takes place in a different universe from the movies, that Anakin is an entirely different character and that even if more likeable in the show, he seems even less torn or prone to falling to the dark side than his movie self. She said that Siege of Mandalore Anakin just doesn’t flow well into ROTS Anakin, and I find it hard to disagree with her.
After talking to her I looked it up and apparently it’s not an unocommon opinion either. But generally I think TCW did improve the popularity of the PT, yeah.