TV's Frink said:

A legacy is more about how others relate to the thing you like rather than how you relate to it, and why would you care if less people like what you like because the legacy is diminished?

Do you actually enjoy watching the OT less because of the PT? Should you need the PT to recognize the flaws in ROTJ?

Absolutely. I can't help but see the Star Wars franchise as some sort of whole. I chose not to, but still to some degree I do. So yes, the average quality of the whole affects how I feel about the whole. The PT bring down the average quality of what is "Star Wars", therefore affecting how I feel about the OT.

I'm not happy about it, but it's true.

I'm waiting to see what happens if/when they make a 3rd Craig Bond movie. QoS was good enough for a bridge between 2 awesome Craig movies, but if the 3rd one fumbles the Quantum storyline... then I'll probably never care about QoS. Although I think I'll always really enjoy Casino Royale (with cheese).

The third Pirates film, in my opinion, was terrible. I love(d) the first two. I'm not actually sure how I feel about the first two ever since I saw three. It's definitely damaged it though.

Lost Season 6 was a complete disappointment to me. I can't say I feel the same about Lost since.

I think that there's a good chance that many here proclaiming their disinterest in the 3D OT would be a lot more happy about it if there had never been SE's or the PT. If this was the first time the OT was being changed at all, I think there would be a lot more positive energy.

Boost:
I immediatly imagine we're all in black t-shirts, smoking, saying how our favorite bands old stuff was better, and sneering at anyone who likes popular music.

Except for Paralyzer. ;)

The Bingo:
If the PT was about the erosion of liberty (George might have screwed it up a bit but that's the essential theme) and the OT was about the fight to restore it and new trilogy could be about what happens to freedom fighters after they win.

History is replete with heroic freedom fighters who struggle to keep what they have won from falling apart and even become just as bad as what they replace.

This idea really came to the forefront of my mind while the wife and I were reading the Thrawn Trilogy last year. The biggest problem is that Reconstruction doesn't have the same tone as the Revolution. That's actually pretty interesting in and of itself- history has shown that the best revolutionaries often make the worst governors. The new Gov't is a completely different thing than the revolution that birthed it, it has different needs and different challenges. But from a film perspective (an adventure fueled fantasy film, especially) there's no "war" anymore, there are more grey areas as pertaining to "good guys" and "bad guys", heroes become dried up wells of potential, bureaucrats take power, etc... I personally find all of that pretty interesting, but I can't imagine that in an actual Star Wars movie.

In other words: if you thought trade route disputes were boring...