I would never say the PT is better than the OT, but to be honest, I think the PT has glimmers of extreme creativity and some great cinematography, but hampered by bad actors, a rusty and CGI-awed director, and rather bad unedited script. If Lucas had just had someone who could pull the reigns on him, and a concrete story/continuity editor, he could have had the greatest two sets of trilogy in sci-fantasy cinema!!! But something happened. Don't know for sure what, but it was not good. Lucas was too focused on the wrong elements of SW rather than what counted in the first place.

What do I like about the PT? Certainly the SFX were a notch up, but they're starting to look dated within only a few years! I think TPM, on a technical level is better than the other two, but still a mish-mash of lost opportunities.