my biggest gripe with them is the impression Lucas seems to have squeezed 4 movies in 3 - that is, 3 movies, even big ones, were too little for the story he wanted to tell
My feeling exactly. I've previously suggested that he should have followed Wagner in making three main films, but with a quasi-separate 'prelude' (cf.
Das Rheingold in the Ring Cycle).
That is: he could have basically released an ATL version of
The Phantom Menace as a "prelude" film in 1997 or something (instead of pottering about with any special editions). Leave out the Trade Federation, make the Secessionists the antagonists from the start. And then the film ends with their evil plot thwarted, but the Sith revealed as not-so-dead, and open war breaking out between the CIS and the Republic.
There'd still be a time-skip afterwards, but preferably a smaller one, so that Anakin is already (approaching) Luke's age in ANH when we first meet him. And then the actual Episodes I-II-III pick up
in medias res, with Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting in the Clone Wars. During the three films, Anakin becomes more and more of a blood knight, and Obi-Wan becomes more and more opposed to the war. So their ideological conflict is "
Any means are justified to end the war" versus "
we have to stay true to our ideals, instead of becoming monsters who fight other monsters".
And in the end, Palpatine just outright reveals to Anakin that he's the Sith Lord,
and that he's controlling both sides-- presenting it as a long-term plan to cull the weak and foster strength and (basically) "the will to power". Something that Anakin willingly goes along with (instead of being duped), because it's a point of view he's
already come to agree with.
This doesn't change the overall structure of the story at all, although it alters Anakin's motivation. His relationship with Padmé becomes more of a secondary motivation; his real reason for joining Palpatine is that he just outright thinks Palpatine is
right. That also allows for a plot change where Padmé fakes her death and lives for a few more years in hiding on Alderaan (thus removing the plot hole where Leia says in RotJ that she actively remembers her birth mother).