The West End Games Roleplay game played a big part in keeping my interest in Star Wars going circa 1987. It was quite pleasing to see stuff from the original WEG Star Wars sourcebooks (Original, Rebel, Imperial) turn up in the prequels, much more pleasing than Chewie and Yoda being mates and the Boba/Jango/clone/stormtrooper thing. I think in the early nineties when Sansweet joined Lucasfilm then WEG started embracing EU and I lost all interest.

1987 - http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Sourcebook

1996(?) - Steve Sansweet joins Lucasfilm and canon goes to a crock of shit, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Sansweet