Except that the OT was very ambiguous about events prior to Episode 4. The broad theme he needed to hit was the fall of Anakin Skywalker, Republic and the Jedi, with Obi-wan, Yoda (maybe), Emperor, and Padme throw-in. All other details were up for interpretation. Hell the Clone Wars could have been a minor regional skirmish, instead of a some crazy galactic war that made no sense. Just because the OT made a passing reference to something, doesn't mean it automatically had to have been some major event. This isn't the EU. He had a blank canvas. He simply fucked up.

Certain events needed to happen. Anakin needed to fall to the darkside. Padme needed to give birth to Twins. Etc. The details in how these events occur can be extrapolated in a ton of different ways. The more detail you go into the more you need to worry about where things fit and how things go together.

That's called bad writing. Okay. Sure.

No it didn't. The prequels could have started with Anakin as a teenage Jedi. He could have joined the Jedi order in the 'normal' way. Could have come from an affluent, loving background, but fell into the Dark Side through plain old boring ambition. Lucas chose to put him on Tatooine, raised by a single slave mother, load him up with midichlorians and have him accidentally blow up a droid mothership.

Needed to happen based on everything that was set up in TPM. If you change the story, the start point, the needs change. Like I said, it's like sudoku. You change one value the other values change.

Believe it or not, you could have a prequel that, even though isn't better than the original, doesn't actually suck. Okay. I don't think I argued the opposite.

Because he (rightly) didn't give a shit about staying perfectly consistent with OT. I'm trying to stay away from things I can't know like Lucas's motives and what he cared about. I only know about his problems with drafting the prequels as that is documented.