It's all subjective, but a lot of your grievances with the sequels, I can easily turn around against the prequels.

Butchering existing characters? Hello, prequel Yoda...

Explaining why there are no Jedi left? Obi-Wan already explained it to Luke...

Badass scenes? Well, the hyperspace kamikaze sure looked badass... Doesn't mean it's good.

Not sure what my point is, other than that it's hard for me to see people bashing the sequels while simultaneously praising the sequels as anything other than nostalgia. To be honest, when you take either prequel/sequel trilogy as standalone pieces of cinema (i.e. no, saying "but this was expanded on further in the comics / TV series...!!!" doesn't actually make a movie better) they both fall pretty flat on their faces...