My own opinion is that Luca$h doesn't like directing that much and I think it shows in his work. As zombie84 has indicated, Luca$h enjoys it when he's got a stress-free environment and can set his own terms. But I'd hardly hold that up as a picture of a passionate director, prepared to defy all odds to achieve his "vision" (there's that damn word again...). Also, he has always been known to be an "editor's" director. He makes little lego pieces for his film that he can then put together in one of his favourite environments, the editing room.

I don't think Luca$h directs actors at all well. I think that, overall, in an ensemble sense, the most solid performances of the saga are in ESB, under Kershner. Come the PT, with people like Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen, who needed a lot of hands-on direction and coaching, it's clear to me that they didn't get it, hence the superficial performances from both of them. It's also notable that the likes of Liam Neeson, Christopher Lee and Samuel L Jackson fell back on their standard schtich, giving less vibrant performances than any of them are capable of. It's clear to me that the older, more experienced actors, like Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Ian McDiarmid, fare much better than younger performers like Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman. The more experienced actors are, the better capable they are of directing themselves, to an extent.

It is also my own opinion that Luca$h is a great ideas man but, when it comes to bringing those ideas to the screen, he needs a lot of help. He can't write a script without a lot of other people to re-structure it and write better dialogue for the characters. Not only that, but he needs other people to help him visualise his ideas and then bring them to a concrete reality (as far as film-making can, of course!).

In other words, my own opinion is that Luca$h may own the legal rights to the SW movies and the ideas behind them, but he is very far from owning them artistically. An auteur he is not.