Since my absence from here I really loved the early EU stuff from the DE series to the Jedi Academy novels written by Anderson. He stays true to the OT formula of going to distant planets, minimizing usage of the force to only certain parts, and the Old characters all seem familiar to me- other than Han being sort of a father figure to young Kyp Durron. I have only read a few pages of the first Thrawn book, but it seemed to be just as good as the rest of the early EU stuff.
I wish I could say the same for some of the LOTF novels, granted I loved Lumiya, some scenes with Caedus, but Luke's character was incredibly weak