On the original point of this thread, there's a part of me that wonders if Lucas WAS writing the PT for someone - his kids. I think his kids had a lot of behind-the-scenes input about what we eventually saw.

If I recall correctly, he stated that he made the Ewok movies to appeal to his kids. This makes sense since he was already divorced by that point. And don't forget that the only reason we got to see the conclusion of the Clone Wars cartoons was that his son wanted to know what happened. And consider all the cameos his kids had in the PT.