I have to say that what I like best about the EU is what I feel at liberty to accept and what I feel at liberty to discard. I think the idea that virtually any Star Wars product contributes to the continuity and cannot conflict with anything else is idiotic. For instance, I remember playing Rebel Assault as a kid and enjoying the game, as the purpose was to make you feel in a sense as if you were Luke Skywalker, getting off of Tatooine and ultimately destroying the Death Star. Come to find out years later that the nameless "Rookie One" is forever enshrined in Star Wars canon, with only the directly contradictory material being ignored just bugs the heck out of me. Moreover, there are so many stupid stories out there that i can't help but cringe that they were ever approved (Ooh, I have a brilliant idea for a story! Let's have the Hutts build their version of the Death Star because Star Wars doesn't have enough superweapons. And they could call in Darksaber because it's like a lightsaber in shape, and the superlaser is like the saber beam, but since the Hutts are bad, they'll replace the "light" in lightsaber with "dark"! Sheer brilliance!). On the other hand, I love the Thrawn trilogy and have read it multiple times. I'm finally giving the Jedi Academy trilogy a chance after avoiding it for over half my life, and though inferior and cheesey in a number of ways, I'm still getting enjoyment out of it. So looking introspectively, I realized what I like about these stories. Sometimes I'm in the mood for classic Star Wars, the OT, nothing else, and that to me is my universe. At other times I want more of the same characters, and I start to believe in some of the EU, but at the same time, I ignore most of the crap out there (sorry, I know some people like it all, but to me I just can't take most of it). And if I want something else, I believe in the PT and OT, and nothing else. See, I just realized that I do that internally. I have three parallel Star Wars universes: OT; OT/PT; OT and limited EU (notice, the EU and PT never jive in my book). In the end, I find Star Wars can be deep and rich, or simple and pure, or just plain fun, and I enjoy it from each angle.