Just as Go-Mer quotes Qui-Gon with, "Your focus determines your reality", what we bring to this discussion cannot be overlooked or minimized. We all have our biases, and anyone who tries to sell me "Well, I'm objective, and..." is pretty unlikely to convince me. We're all just better off admitting where we are coming from.
For me, the OT set the bar high for future Star Wars movies. And the PT, while enjoyable at times, did not meet the established standard. Criticism of the story of the PT, while it can be valid criticism, doesn't get to the heart of the matter. The story we got in Ep. I-III, if executed more effectively, would have been satisfactory. Lucas' method of execution relied heavily upon visual effects and he wedged OT references into the PT in such a clumsy, inorganic way - I'm reminded of Boba Fett's "Hey, look at me, I'm Boba Fett" cameo in ANH:SE.
It bothers me that in order for certain PT plot points to work, I have to A) watch the Clone Wars cartoon B) reference a Lucas quote about the given scene C) read a Visual Companion or D) craft some kind of elaborate theory about why ________ happened. Here's a for instance:
Someone named "Darth Toe Jam" on another SW forum (thefarce.net) trumpets in his signature that he thought of the Anakin/Vader "Duel Persona" theory before Lucas confirmed it. The Dual Persona theory, for the unitiated, states that Anakin died when he became Darth Vader and that's why Mannequin Skywalker appears at the end of ROTJ. I have two questions:
1) Why wasn't this made evident in the movies? Why do we need to hear from George Lucas after the fact?
2) Who the Blue Hell threw the Emperor down the freaking Death Star II shaft?!? Lucas made it clear that Anakin was dead at that point!
This is the kind of thing that can drive me up a goddamn wall in the PT. Some stuff gets explained into the ground while other stuff is presented so badly that the question remains unanswered on film.
Again, I don't deny a bias in this matter, but I think by and large the majority of my criticisms of the PT are rooted in storytelling flaws.