There are plenty of great chases in the movies (Bullitt and TFC are two of them) Mad Max, Death Proof, The Driver, Drive, Tron, T2, Vanishing Point, TDK and of course the skateboard based chase from BTTF. But none of them can touch the exhileration of those trees wipping past your face in ROTJ. I find myself almost ducking and dodging the incoming trees myself. Probably 50% of the credit goes to Ben Burtt's sound design.

Another point. While it could be argued that Harrison and Carrie didn't bring their 'A game' I think too often people just see that, then assume it was the same for everyone on ROTJ. It's just not the case...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvDlg1My0Cc

For most people on ROTJ, they wanted to finish the saga by topping everything that had gone before.