Glad you can take up the slack -- good ideas!
I am not around to flesh out my own right now-- but many of them are peppered through the thread already so don't toss them out without reading them first (or whatever)
For my money, this sequence is exactly as you said -- the first real slow part. The reason is, I believe, there is no threat, no sense of where we're going, or how it connects. That's why I want to bring in Maul as soon as possible and let him begin his threatening hunt.
I too want to get to dinner asap. Cut the threepio meeting until after dinner. Then have Maul arrive-- using the darkness in his shots to match with the sandstorm.
That allows us to pepper in his probe droids earlier and raise tension.
I also want to cut out the talk to Shmi before the race and cannibalize it in the farewell. Let that talk (about half of it) occur as Anakin is collecting his stuff to leave.
The idea is to let the race be the place where Qui Gon decides how special Anakin is -- not before.
I know that sounds radical and I have lots of notes on how to make it work that I haven't got time to flesh out-- do you think you can run with that much? Or is that too crazy for you?
The beats would go something more like:
dinner
maul
deal with watto
probe droid
night(first to see all the stars)
morning
brief Q and Watto talk over Sebulba (cut dice, cut idea that Q is betting for Anakin -- save that as a surprise to the audience-- cut the arrival of Anakin and the pod -- get to the race!)
probe droid
Race