I'm not that sold on the power source idea.

Palpatine gets elected, forms the Separatist movement and gets an army out of his initial plan, so throwing in battlestation reactors into the bargain seems a bit too lucky.

I am rather loving your Gungan battle idea (not sure how Jar Jar could get there and if he isn't there what to do about him not being there if you catch my drift).

He could stay on Coruscant and vote for Palpatine I guess.

I want Grievous to be a potential Vader (along with the rejected pupil in TPM) he could have Maul's eyes too to add a further layer of speculation to the guy.

He is probably too much to add fully formed but half built Grevious could appear maybe he looks more Vader like with each appearence.

The main trick is to change all references to Skywalker in the PT to Anakin or remove them altogether.

At no point is he called Anakin Skywalker until ROTJ.

That way we can keep the exciting lava battle without finding out for sure he is Luke and Leia's dad.

Dooku is never a fallen Jedi as such, he is a dissident, a renegade but he believes what he is doing is right and has no personal ambitions for power.

He thinks he is simply assembling a force to oppose the Sith.

In fact he is the patsy.

The Jedi will get blamed for the Separatists because they were led by a Jedi master not by a Sith Lord.

I have no problem with an elected constitutional monarch (they had them in central Europe for hundreds of years). The UK is considered a democracy despite the head of state not even being elected. Princess Leia is a Princess and a senator and a freedom fighter in the name of democracy.