I love McDiarmind's Palpatine/Emperor in all movies where he is. He's one of the few actors who actual care to act in the prequels. So, yes, he is in some political boring parts and when he becomes Emperor he plays it "over the top evil" with the "witch voice" he had in ROTJ, turned up to 11. But at least it was acting. He presents a real character to the audience. And it was actualy fun to watch, IMO. The only thing I did not like was seeing him jumping and twisting in the air with a lightsaber. But that was not him. That was Lucas playing with a computer. And the bad make-up too, indeed. But in the case of the make-up I think it's also because they did not played enough with the light during the shooting. It's badly illuminated most of the time. But, yeah, it was a bad make-up anyway...