I absolutely agree with you OP and it’s one of the things that makes me irritated to no end about the current state of Star Wars and its fans. It’s tied up in prequel apologism, people not understanding the Force or what balance in the Force means, the concept of “gray Jedi,” the concept of the “light side,” and people thinking the entire series is cyclical and predestined.
That’s part of the issue for sure. The other is this:
The prequel trilogy is based on a back-story outline Lucas created in the mid-1970s for the original three “Star Wars” movies…
It’s people believing he put anywhere near the thought into it back then that they continue to put into it 45 years later. He wrote A film. He didn’t write 3 films, 9 films, 12 films, or 6 films. Pick your interview because he gave plenty of them back in the 1980s, along with every answer he could come up with. If he had any thoughts on any other films back in the 1970s, he wouldn’t have hired two other people to write sequels.