I undertand where you’re coming from but what I’d say from the sources mouth is that Lucas explained himself he had different plans for ROTJ and like ANH and ESB, the films changed a lot over the course of pre-production. The diffence with ROTJ was that his inicial plans included setting up the sequal trilogy with many plotlines being planned to continue on to the sequals. (ie the identity of Luke’s sibling) however following ESB George was becoming fatigued with SW and inicially decided not to persue a sequal. Only later with access to filming technogy he felt would remove the barriers to creativity he had be so frustrated with, did he persue the prequals.
My point being what you are perciving as prequal like, is more byproducts of creative burnout and last minute changes. The prequals’ development is well documented and understood to be mostly sourced from George’s isolation form other creative, with no imput from anyone willing to correct him on mistake and him being left not only to direct (which he has been vocal about not enjoying) but worse of all being left to create dialog without interance… which anyone could tell you was a recipe for ear torture. But thats the issue of making a sequal/prequal 20 years later with now grown up childhood fans, who think on some level you are the god of your own creation and they couldn’t possible correct you.
(this is why treasures like Sam Witwer are so great as he was willing not only to speak up and correct Dave Filony, his direct boss, but even argue character motivation with Lucas himself and be 100% right about it).
So yeah I get how and why this film feels similar but also why people see very different flaws.