Bingowings said:

Technically speaking the arc to Han's character begins and ends in the first film.

I guess it depends on how you look at it. In terms of his character alone, in isolation, yeah. In terms of the overall story and especially of the great story that could've been, I say not quite.

That probably sounds a bit odd, but the way I see it Han faces the consequences of his actions in Empire, and I've always seen this to be a) the perfect continuation of his arc from Star Wars and b) the ideal set-up for a tragic end that would've provided the much needed motivation for Leia, Chewie and Lando in Jedi, and thus would've made everything gel for the finale.

I hate how loose and meandering Jedi feels and how it's clearly not thought out properly, and while you can salvage the Luke vs the Emperor bits with fairly straightforward rewrites of a few lines (that's just the quick and dirty solution, obviously), the rest of Jedi is just too big of a mess to fix it that way. With Han's death pretty much all the major problems are solved.

That's just my idea, anyway. Not sure if I managed to convey it clearly, but there you go.

Bingowings said:

She is attracted to Han because he is unpredictable and irreverent (and rather dishy). There could have been a lot of mileage left in what happens to Leia and Han if they settle down, if he stops being a scoundrel ; if he stops being so dishy (imagine if the carbonite had permanently scarred him) ; if he was vulnerable (no longer able to be the flyboy pirate because he is permanently blind and bitter because of it).

There's potential for good drama in those ideas, but it doesn't sound very fitting for Star Wars to me. Still, I would've preferred that instead of "Hey, it's me" etc.