First, thanks for including me in that list - I really appreciate it! It was seeing ZkinandBonez and Rocknroll41 post their thoughtful, nuanced essays that gave me the push to finally write mine after having it bouncing around in my head for years, so being included with them is humbling.

Also, if I can paraphrase, you made me realize that, for me, everything from “I am your father” on feels like BS. Knowing that Vader wasn’t Luke’s dad when Star Wars was made makes that feel untrue for me; same with Leia not being Luke’s sister when Empire was made. Those were two of Lucas’s first retcons, and they diminish what the Star Wars Universe felt like to me as a kid. I will grant that the Vader thing works from a mythological POV, but I still feel like Lucas made that decision in part because it would be shocking, and in part because it would simplify the story for his purposes. The Leia decision was just doubling down on that - the OT was really hard on him (directing Star Wars was physically overwhelming), and it felt like RoTJ was made knowing that it would be successful, so he just wanted to tie up as many loose ends as possible so he could do something else with his life.

Along the same lines, I don’t think Lucas imagined the look and feel of the PT before the mid-90s (at the earliest). I know he likes to portray things as “I couldn’t make the movies I saw in my head before the technology was ready”, but I think that puts the cart before the horse. I think the look of those movies, and many of the events in them, came about because he saw that they might be technically possible, and modified his basic storyline to fit what he thought ILM could pull off.

For me, the historical events hinted at in Star Wars took place in a universe that fits (roughly) with the look and feel of what we saw in the first two movies. I’ve never fleshed that idea out beyond that thought - what would be the point? - but that’s my basic stance, and why nothing since has felt right to me.