One way of making the Jedi come across as less stupid and more realistic would be to replace some of the council members and give them new lines which could nudge the plot into something approaching making sense.

One of the reasons why the PT feels so flat and unconvincing is the over use of CGI and puppets as exposition feeders.

The Rebels and the Imperials come across as more believable in the OT not just because the dialogue is better written and matches a story that makes more sense but also because they are played for the most part by real people without the need of physical or computerised puppetry and audiences tend to relate more to real people.

Even in the OT Ackbar is less engaging a character than Dodonna in ANH because he doesn't really need to be a lobsterman (it may make the Rebels seem more diverse than a humans only club but Ackbar's alien nature is diminished by his very human voice).

Yoda works in ESB and Jabba in ROTJ because of all the effort that went into creating them and because of their position in the story.

I imagine the success of Chewie and the droids in the first film gave George free license to push the other worldly and abstract characters further into the foreground and end result was to dilute the human dimension in the PT.

Removing some of the more bizarre Jedi from the PT would make space for new dialogue and perhaps a less wobbly telling of the story.