I think Lucas simply changed his mind between the trilogies. Tatooine was more of an old West analogy in the OT. You had homesteads, saloons, shootouts, traders, and bandits who would attack unwary travelers. Even the rifle Luke pulls out of the Landspeeder before the sandpeople attacked looks like a prop from a western.

Even though Jabba's Palace eventually turns out to be located there, (it can't be his only stronghold) the planet is still referred to as "nothing to see" by Luke.

What there is of Tatooine in the previews I've seen of Dark Horse's The Star Wars comic, (based on Lucas' original drafts) it still appears to be an out of the way place.

There's no easy way to reconcile the OT and PT versions of the planet.