NeverarGreat said:
... the implication is that the more midichlorians a person has, the more power they have with the Force,
...and...
Vader says "the Force is with _", a practically meaningless statement considering that according to the PT, the number of midichlorians in a person's blood determines how strong they are in the Force.
Correlation doesn't prove causality. In TPM that midichlorians were a way of measuring the force in someone, not because they cause it, but because they happen to respond to it. It's like seeing if someone has HIV by measuring their white blood cell count -- the white blood cells aren't HIV, and they don't cause it, but they respond to it and thus can be used to measure it.
It was a stupid, stupid idea that took an age-old spiritual idea, and made it scientific and cold. Even LFL must have realized this because they didn't mention them in prequels 2 and 3.