I have more ideas coming-- ways to juice up the droids, tone up the romance, and beef up a few sequences with sound effects-- but there's one idea that I just stole from another thread that you have to hear.
This is from Rebel Scum's new ideas on recutting Ep. I -- If you like it, it will effect how you want to cut Sidious into Episode II.
Episode I suffers from a real lack of suspense -- we know everything the bad guys are doing before they do it and we know more about everything than Qui Gon and Obi Wan. Because Darth Sidious telegraphs all his plans, there's never an opportunity for us to be surprised by the bad guys-- but what if...
What if you cut out every single reference to Sidious?
Consider -- this simplifies the apparent story and adds a layer of subtext. The threat posed by the Trade Federation goes up a notch because suddenly they aren't so frickin incompetent and servile-- they're the top of the food chain as far as we know. Then Nute Gunray becomes a memorable and cool character. His henchmen is Darth Maul -- quite like Tarkin and Vader in ANH. And just like ANH, we aren't told that this "Darth" character is the servent of Sidious. It's implied and played by the rules-- but never stated.
This empowers both Gunray and Maul -- and saves the big Sidious reveal for Episode II!
Then the final pan to Palpatine gets more juice. And the reveal at the end of Episode II gets real power. Finally, a fan might say, the EMPEROR comes on the scene.
You lose some good moments (well, the only one I really like is when Sidious says "Wipe them out, OHLL of them!") -- but you get a hell of a lot of juice and drama in the exchange.
And it gives Episode II one more way to be cool -- and Episode II could use it.
Anyway-- I hope you'll give it a thought. I personally think that would improve Episode I a great deal-- but if you wanted to do it, then you'd want to make Sidious' first appearance in Episode II somehow very special.