To be honest, most of the EU has always been on the poor side. Even a lot of the Marvel comics from 77-79, divorced from nostalgia and the "alternate universe" factor of being confined only to the influence of the first film, are really not inherantly better written, illustrated or told than any of the Dark Horse comics of the 90s or of today. I think its mostly the atmosphere of the company back then the encourages a sort of better view of it all, where there was less output. The last four or five years though seem to be sliding into a sort of crisis of continuity though.
My feeling though is that if you don't like this stuff, just ignore it. You can just pick and choose the ones you like, or choose none of it. I pretty much stay 100% away from the EU but once in a while I find something interesting. If you think your imagination is a better vehicle for the Star Wars universe's untold stories then just keep it that way, but I do find it entertaining to see how another person's imagination took the same event. That's all the EU is really, although the problem now is the same problem that every major franchise goes through--it gets choked by its own continuity. You have no room to be imaginative or make the story do what it should. Personally, although I think Zahn is the best of the EU writers, I think 50%, if not 70%, of the reason his books were good was because of this--he could pretty much invent whatever he wanted and make up things to serve the story. Now, it's the opposite, the story has to serve a pre-established continuity that is incredibly complex, so there's no character or narrative freedom.
In the comic world, DC universe had a major problem with this in the 1980s. Over the past 50 years there was so many different versions of the superhero origins, so many different side-characters (Supergirl, Superboy, Superdog), three or four completely alternate realities that co-existed, and the characters never aged, grew or changed their clothing styles. By 1980, the editors in power realized what a mess it all was and how no one could write anything interesting. Their solution was to basically do a massive, company-wide storyline which killed off everyone and sort of re-booted the continuity from scratch. I think this eventually led to the "Death of Superman" storyline as a holdover from this. The SW EU right now is getting to such a point, it's become too bloated and convoluted--there's only a finite amount of story lines you can do, but the demands of a weekly and monthly release schedule, whether you are DC comics or Lucasfilm, means you are forever sinking back into a corner with each release.
I guess on a similar line of thought, even though I advocate the "just ignore the stuff you don't like" train of thought, it does make me sad simply knowing that the EU had taken on such huge scale in its output--it's simply not necessary. It cheapens the franchise by making it essentially a money-driven machine; in the 70s you had some toys and a comic line and a few novels you could count on one hand, that was fine. Even in the 90s when things started taking off, I found that to be the most satisfying period. You had quite a few things to choose from, some good, some bad, many disposable but sort of fun by virtue of being Star Wars, but it wasn't this crazy amount, it wasn't this huge machine that needed to support a billion dollar company and all of its overhead. Personally, ever since 1999, the EU has just been a wealth-enablement scheme, whereas before that one sensed the genuine excitement to create some new Star Wars stuff, whether toys or video games or books or comics. I mean, Lucas was involved in Dark Empire and Heir to the Empire and seemed enthused by them, one sensed something more than just money even if that was a primary reason for their existance. Now, I honestly don't think he has any clue at all at what the hell has been happening since the late 1990s, and I don't think he gives a shit either. It has become this self-generating machine run by its own division for the purposes of generating profit.