I have a friend who's 26 and he thinks golem looks awesome because he's CGI. Personally I think the effect would be more believable and better if they used a thin child to play the part covered in layers of make-up. CGI just does not look real, no matter how good it looks. Golem is a freaking eye-sore because he's not really there, and you can tell. When you watch the movie you can tell that it's not real and that it's only CGI. The should only use CGI when you're not going to be able to tell the difference. For instance, when I watch Starship Troopers all the bugs in the movie look "real" to me. I know they're CGI, but they look freaking awesome. I haven't seen Jurassic Park (the original) for years now, but I could never tell the difference between the CGI dinosaurs and the ones that were actually built (though i could in the sequel). And it's true, stop-motion looks awful compared to CGI - for instance watch the original Terminator movie where the Terminator is reduced to the endoskeleton near the end ... CGI would undoubtedly look better if the movie was made today (though T3 sucked and had some terrible CGI effects in it).
Yoda looks better as a puppet. He looks more real.
Lucas has major issues. He's very creative, very smart and a very good storyteller - but he has major issues. When he visited the set for the 5 points in the movie Gangs of New York he was quoted as saying "you can do that in a computer now". And nearly all the sets in the PT are... CGI. But Gangs of New York was shot in a real set - and it looks real. Some of the CGI sets in the P.T. don't look great - but many of them do. The point is that CGI is not the answer to "everything". And it's certainly not the answer to older movies. I don't want to see the early James Bond movies edited to match the special effects of the movies today. I mean come on.