Yeah, Dark Lord works better as a bridge for ROTS-ANH than TFU ever did. When closely examined, the plot of TFU makes absolutely NO SENSE at all. Dark Lord, while definitely not the best written EU, at least was written with applied talent and intelligence.
As for the ROTS novelization: heck, even though much of it was written minimalistically and with little description, it held more emotional weight than what we got in the film by far.