Puppet Yoda is less realistic in many superficial ways (in some ways it's more realistic, however), but it is far more emotionally gripping than what Lucasart's artists gave us in the prequels (both Episode I Yoda and CG Yoda). The character's physical model had so much more feeling and reality poured into his OT creation (for whatever reason).

Otherwise, I don't like the Yoda duels for two reasons: First, he's an "old man" and thus shouldn't be able to fight like that. Second, Yoda was so skilled with the good side of the force that he should have actually been able to reflect his opponent's attacks back against them and thus never need to use the force to perform any attack of his own.