I think Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back are obviously masterpieces both.

What I don't understand is the critical snobbery and adults thumbing their nose at ROTJ.

ROTJ was and still is incredibly popular with everyone who has not heard from the internet that they are supposed to like ESB better. Growing up, my brother always wanted to watch ROTJ and it's still his favorite. It had extremely memorable characters in Jabba the Hutt (as lifelike as Yoda) and Emperor Palpatine, who basically represented the devil in the throne room scene.

And it had memorable, realistic action set pieces. Who can forget the speeder bike chase or the moment when Luke turns on his green saber for the first time on the Sail Barge? Who has ever topped the incredibly realistic, 3-D space battle at the end since 1983? Nobody.

And ROTJ deals with extremely powerful themes in temptation, redemption and forgiveness in the long throne room sequence- there is a strong moral undercurrent there that is far more striking and far more well-defined than in the 2 previous movies.

ROTJ is arguably the best of the OT.