VFP,
I think I get what you mean. I opened a thread a month or two ago with a similar idea. Let's see... here it is! http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Prequel-Approval-Ratings-Speculation/topic/10641/
Like you said, after 16 years and lots of EU, there was no way to satisfy all Star Wars fans. Realizing this is somewhat frustrating... but I think it can also be freeing. The expression "Well, you can't please all of the people all of the time..." is meant to make you feel better about doing something that some people don't like. Or, in Lucas's case in the mid 90s, setting out to make something that can't, regardless of your efforts, please everyone. When faced with the reality you can't please everyone, you have to decide whom you will please. I suppose poor filmmakers try to please 2 groups:
1) Themselves.
2) Whatever group that will make them the most money, as long as it doesn't extermely compromise group #1.
Lucas had the money to do whatever he wanted... but from a financial perspective, it's hard to say that a "good" prequel trilogy would have made Lucas any more money than the buckets of gold that he's made off of the saga since 1999.
No, I don't think it's our fault. As I speculated in my post, I think that had the prequels been done well, 80% of us would have been fully satisfied. As it is, I guess 40% of are... so he really missed the boat there. The movies ARE terrible. They are a lodestone around the neck of everything Star Wars.
The sad thing is I think I know myself well enough to think I'd probably be in that cranky 20% that wouldn't have been happy with anything. There are parts of the EU that I really like- there are a couple things that I really really like, maybe even love. But I'm a fairly critical fan, and I think I would have been folding my arms and spitting no matter what. :(