Yeah. I feel for you. You bought the paperback. I wanted to buy the paperback but then I heard about the bonus material and I decided I'd better get the ten-ton hardback. I think it's a dirty trick sticking valuable stuff in the hardback only. That section about expanding the universe has a whole lot of 1977 monologue pieces from Lucas in which he gives bits of 1977 Star Wars backstory for use by expanded universe writers. Han, 3PO, Leia, rebellion, rise of the empire, etc.

I'm still in shock that in 77 Lucas had threepio rebuilt by a boy working for a junk dealer and eventuallly given new coverings, later to join Alderaanian service. The thing to be careful about when judging the prequels is that some stuff that looks like it's recent bullshit can turn out to go way back. Still there's a lot of stuff that looks very clearly like it's a 90s development. And if the prequels really were all that faithful to Lucas's backstory then maybe the backstory was crap that was best kept off the screen. But I think no matter how faithful the story elements in the prequels might be to the original backstory, the spirit of how they were done out in the prequels must be seriously at odds with how Lucas envisioned the backstory back in the old days. And no way was Anakin originally envisioned as being like the Hayden Christensen version.