Lucas has not once altered his opinion on the Jedi. Back in the 1980s, 2000s, and nowadays, he still says the Jedi were right and still echoes their philosophy as if it were his own.
I’m not so sure that his perception has never changed. There was no mention in the OT of a need for Luke to leave behind his attachments. Obi-Wan cautions him to not let the Emperor use those attachments against him, but that’s not the same thing. Also, Lucas was able to give the greenlight on plot points in the EU, so he must have been aware of and greenlit the Luke-Mara Jade romance and marriage and the New Jedi Order doctrine changes. Of course, he later said he disagreed with the idea of Luke getting married, but that was later.
Exactly. Lucas revised his ideas many times. And some of the things he can be quoted saying come from his point of view at the time - both what he was working on and who was asking the questions, and even what question was asked. I think that it is very clear from the films themselves that the Jedi are flawed. They are too attached to the Republic and politics and grown too bound by tradition. They are not evil, but they are not what they once were or what they could have been. There are cracks in their visage and the PT show that. And when you compare it to the OT, it becomes even more obvious. If that weren’t he case, Yoda and Obi-wan wouldn’t have so drastically changed training methods for Luke. Even tipping point. The council turns down Anakin in TPM because there is much fear in him. And yet in TESB, Yoda notes that there is much anger in Luke. And when Luke says “I am not afraid,” Yoda replies, “You will be. You will be.” And while the OT came first in our timeline, it came after in the Star Wars timeline. So that revision means that Yoda and Obi-wan acknowledge that something has changed. They adopt different training techniques. In reality George might have just forgotten, but when you watch all the films (and this isn’t even getting into the things like Qui-gon going against the council or Mace being so harsh with Anakin) it feels very clear that they have re-evaluated everything to make sure that Luke gets the customized training he needs to be a success. Anakin had the default traditional training and it didn’t fit. Obi-wan admits his failing in ANH. What Lucas intended as he was making the PT may have changed from film to film as it did in the OT. The end results is 6 films that show a failing Jedi order and how they fail the greatest of them, and then the last two Jedi trying to resurrect it with Luke.
That is how I see it anyway.