Bingowings said:

I still maintain that it was a mistake to focus too much on Anakin/Obi-Wan etc

We get to learn almost everything we need to know about them in the OT.

The PT would work better as drama if those characters were relatively minor characters and the characters we care about in the first three episodes don't have a zone of certainty around them.

That way people watching them after the OT will not know they are safe or doomed and people watching from the PT through to the OT will not have the plot spoiled from the later episodes.

They need to be in there somewhere but we don't need them to be the main characters any more than we need Mon Mothma and Motti to be the main characters of the OT.

We didn't need to see Yoda at all.

I anticipated a new Star Wars movie during the lean years (1984-1998). There was a lot of feverish anticipation leading up to TPM, and whatever it's flaws, the trailer for it was absolutely awesome.

A prequel trilogy without Yoda would certainly preserve the surprise in ESB when it's revealed that the annoying green muppet is actually him.

I also wonder how the prequels would have been like if the name Darth Vader and the mask never appeared in Episode III. Just have Obi Wan seemingly kill Anakin after he turned to the dark side. When people see Episode IV, audiences will wonder who Darth Vader is. And they'll wonder why Obi Wan told Luke that Vader killed Anakin.