Well, I dont know about these young kids idolizing Anakin. However, when i was little, during the time of the OT, my favorite character was Darth Vader. Plus I was a girl, so I don't know what I was thinking exactly, but I think it may have to do with little kids wanting to be powerful. I've heard it described before too. From the age of around 3-5 I liked Darth Vader the best, then after that I moved on to Luke, Leia and Han being my faves. Little kids desire power because they don't have any, and are dependent on everyone else for everything practically in their lives.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The reason we loved Vader as kids cause he was just a cool bad guy and nothing is wrong with that. He wasn't this guy who had all these emotional problems who has ethical dilemmas with killing Tuskens, Younglings, and choking his wife, that is the difference.
Vader to us was just another cool bad guy who we all tried to do his breathing on the playground. That is healthy to like badguys, heck, I loved The Joker in Batman '89 only because he was just a cool bad guy. But in the OT days, as much as we love Vader, we had good guys like Luke to offset Vader and show to the public, this is an example of a good guy.
The difference with PT Anakin/Vader is it comes down to morals now, and just read my sig, and that my beef with the whole story. I will go as far to say I think Lucas should take Anakin out as Force Ghost all together now if someone watches it 1-6, cause he does not deserve to sit there smiling next to Kenobi and Yoda after what he did.
Doing bad things in war time and losing ones self to power can happen to anybody, and there is something redeeming about that. Killing a bunch of children and choking your wife, are you telling me I am suppose to root for this guy in ROTJ, and then sit there and enjoy his conversation to his son that he tried to kill Lukes mom? To me that is moral bankruptcy at its worst, and it is everything I didn't envision Darth Vader doing. That is the difference between kids today who love Anakin and us liking Vader at 10 years old.