There ARE a few good scenes - like the scene with Anakin and Padme thinking about each other and starting across the city - but the first two also had a few good/fun scenes.
I think the deliberate, clumsy linkups to ANH make people nostalgic and thus they overlook the crap.
By the way - I was told that at last the Prequel Trilogy of STAR WARS would actually have some space battles in it... but there was only that brief and cheesy-animated-robot-riddled flying sequence with the two Jedi. Some proper space battles would have been nice!