I'd agree that the state of SW in early 1990s was much better for us, old fans. For example games: nothing beats X-Wing, TIE Fighter & Dark Forces. Enough said (I could write entire article about the fall of LEC games' quality).

I think it was X-Wing that "reminded" me of Star Wars in the first place. I didn't have Trilogy on VHS back then, go figure. So when I saw the game intro on TV (on a game-related program) I was instantly hooked.

Later on I caught Zahn's trilogy. I wasn't bad, surely one of the better EU stuff, but I wasn't blown away, like I was with the games.

From that point I've wasted a lot of $ on books & CDs... but nowadays I don't buy/get any SW stuff (except for the model kits I bought last year, OT designs of course).

BTW, I'm in the "saw SW in 1980 on the big screen" group.