I am in the minority here, but I actually favor TPM over AOTC. In spite of its ecessive chessiness, TPM felt like a Star Wars film. It actually reminded me of ROTJ because of the 3 part climax.
AOTC had too many problems for me to enjoy it. The cheesy love story really just about put me to sleep. I know Star Wars has always borrowed from other works. Hope is actually heavily inspired by Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress. However, it looks like Lucas borrowed from Fifth Element, Blade Runner, and Gladiator. The stuff on Curoscant reminded me of an overcrowded version of Blade Runner, and the chase there reminded me of Fifth Element. The ending with Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan tied to the columns and fighting the monsters, reminded me a lot of a twisted version Gladiator only not as exciting.
The part with 3PO having his head switched with a Battle Droid and so forth was so stupid. It wouldn't have been so bad if they wouldn't have carried on with it so long. That part made the Jar Jar Binks annoyances in TPM seem trite. It also seemed that every last alien character was 100% CGI. What happened to the art of makeup effects? Also, the Yoda duel really did not impress me. That scene reminded me of Sonic The Hedgehog.
I believe the PT suffers from the ability to do anything technical wise for one. Back during the OT, they had to come up with ways to get around the technological barriers and it actually seemed they focused on the story and characters a lot more instead of the effects. Now, they can do anything with effects, so they overload the films with them.
The main thing the PT suffers from though is that it appears Lucas didn't remember what he wrote in the OT. It seems that he is twisting the OT to fit around the PT instead of the other way around, if that makes sense. It would have been better if Lucas had seriously worked on these films all along instead of lying about it all these years.
I keep hearing Ep. III is going to tie the PT to the OT very nicely. Well, if the rumors are true about a TV miniseries to occur between III and IV, it doesn't seem like it is going to wrap things up as well as everyone says. That's all speculation though. I can't really see them doing a TV miniseries.
Sorry these thoughts are random, but it is early in the morning.
Patrick