When the 1995 THX VHS came out and SW saw a resurgence in pop culture, I was 11 years old. I enjoyed some of the Dark Horse comics, the customizable card game, a few novels, etc. It was a fun experience to expand upon my liking for the OT characters. The Zahn trilogy and other works satisfied this.
Now, the SW universe is just so damn diluted and pathetic. Clone wars? Don't care. Knights of the Old Republic? Don't care. There's just so much crap out there anybody who tries to keep up is wasting his time.I acknowledge there is probably good work in the current EU (can't imagine writing being worse than the prequels), but there has to be a hell of a lot of inconsistency. And doesn't it become bland after awhile? How many more unique characters are there to explore? Quality goes down with increasing quantity.
The average SW fan probably knows more about the EU than Lucas.
The greatest effect the bloated EU has is diminishing and cheapening the stories and characters in the movies. 15 years ago Darth Vader was a talented warrior who gave into temptation and slaughtered the Jedi. Now he's a pathetic loser who couldn't nut up to the fact that shit happens and you have to deal with it.
I haven't played The Force Unleashed but know that the main character in the game challenges Vader for his seat with the Emperor or something like that. You have all these super powerful, important characters that seem to come along every week in the EU timeline but it's all inconsequential because what you have in the OT is all that matters (at least to me).
Outside of the OT and select EU works, the SW brand honestly sucks.