For me the issue isn't what the prequel trilogy needed. I came into the PT experience expecting nothing and hoping to be entertained with all-new material. I didn't even need the movies to be great or good. Phantom Menace is my favorite movie of the PT despite its large flaws. That's probably because it's more focused on entertaining people than making sure that we all know its fucking connected to Star Wars.

Instead, we had so many elements of the prequel trilogy simply and boringly rehashing what the original trilogy had already established in a superior way. That served no other purpose than to ruin the OT. That is something nobody needed.