Bingowings said:
In terms of space battles the one at the end of TPM looks WWI to ANH's WWII (colourful simple fighter craft
/less colouful gritty fighter craft
).
The problem isn't so much in the design but it the writing.
Maybe it's not so much the specific look* of the fighter crafts but rather the execution of the battles that makes it hard for me to believe/accept that TPM is supposed to be 'before' SW/ANH.
*even taking into consideration your color analogy, there's still a problem, though: we should have at least seen Y-Wings in the PT, since during the OT days the film makers involved were saying that they looked so 'beat-up' because they were in fact older craft than the X-wings....