You can make ewoks less silly but you just have to accept them for what they are.....
they are nowhere near as bad looking or as bad sounding as Jar Jar or grievous. But the seeds were planted here with the ewoks
As far as the lightning force powers go... I never actually thought of it like that before... It first showed up in ROTJ but I don'y mind it being there earlier in revisited I think it would be really hard to get rid of... I can live with that