CWBorne said:
Speaking for myself, Palpatine simply being an opportunist who found an effective means to get what he wanted is far more interesting than the quasi-fundamentalist Sith the prequels portrayed him as.
Indeed. Palpatine as a self-taught darksider, who probably researched the lore of countless Force traditions - Jedi, Sith, and otherwise - dabled in their arts, and probably conducted his own explorations into the Force, is far more interesting a character than Lucas' Palpatine, who's no more than the heir to a long line of boring, two-dimensional Sith Lords with stupid names and the inane Rule of Two.