For me, the PT has aged way better than I expected it to. When I first saw it, the story of how the Republic became the Empire didn’t really work for me. Now that I have the “It could happen here” sense, it’s more compelling.
Same, and The Clone Wars cartoons really helped a lot. The thing about the Prequels is, conceptually, on a general big picture basis, I think the story works. The political conspiracy with Palpatine, the clone army and battle droids, all of it works once you have all the information (which unfortunately comes from supplementary material over the films themselves). The main problem with the prequels is the execution, especially acting.
The reason Episode II is the weakest prequel for me is that the love story between Anakin and Padme is supposed to be half of the focus of that movie and yet it’s almost completely unbelievable. The actors are TRYING their hardest to make the characters sound as good as possible but that damn Lucas directing just renders it impossible, resulting in some very cringe and even creepy scenes. Half the time, Anakin looks like an obsessive stalker rather than a lovestruck yet charming young man. Part of Anakin’s demeanor is intentional but you have to sell to the audience that Padme isn’t out of her mind for falling for this guy and it really failed.
The other half is interesting and engaging with Obi-Wan discovering the clone army and everything, yet gets hampered by lack of information, again thanks to bad execution by George. To this day, general audiences have no idea what the hell the deal with Sifo-Dyas was (if they even remember him at all) and it took a cartoon that came out years later to even sort of explain it (as well as the brilliant Darth Plagueis novel).
Of the two, TPM and RotS are the best of the trilogy because they both functionally work even if TPM drags and makes ridiculous comedy at times. RotS is the closest to a good movie the prequels ever come though it falls short a bit with some bad acting takes as well.
Ultimately, I genuinely love the prequels for the world they created to complement the OT and explain the rise of the Empire, but I don’t love them for THEM. I love them for what other people did with that concept in cartoons, videogames and comic books.