I agree with most of what you're saying—that much of it is driven by nostalgia, and it's not worth getting super worked up about these things, and it's fine for people to like whatever they like—but if you do want to get into a discussion about art and the relative merits of these shows, there are good arguments that the originals executed on things like character and plot that the prequels just didn't. Red Letter Media did the best review series on why exactly the prequels felt so unsatisfying to so many people, and it's more than just preference and has to do with blunders in fundamental aspects of storytelling. All of that said it's totally fine for people to like them, and you're right that there are better things to fret over.
I enjoyed the Red Letter Media series but felt it was unfair on the Prequels (which is fine, RLM is still a great series.) I ended up watching the OT a bit after Episode 2 and found them to be just as campy and flaw filled as the Prequels just in different places. But this has been litigated to death on the net since Usenet days so I'm not sure if we're gonna break new ground here (:
Oh yea, critiquing movies is fun as hell, and with a franchise like star wars there's basically endless opportunity for it. I basically think Phantom Menace gets way too much critique, Clone Wars/A New Hope/Return of the Jedi don't get enough. Empire Strikes Back is really good, and whatever the third movie is was just kind of bland and depressing(it has some of the best action sequences of the series, but Padmé should have featured more strongly before dying offscreen.)
But there's a reason why the star wars fandom has such a stank reputation, and it's 100% because adult men care way too much about something meant for children to a quite creepy extent. Two things immediately come to mind: 1) the explicit and physical sexualization of Leia, which I understand but definitely don't think was necessary in retrospect (at least not so ham-handedly), and 2) the abuse of the guy who did the Jar Jar Binks voice acting. It's not his fault Lucas wrote the character as a moronic alien speaking patois. I wasn't aware of the abuse until long after it was over, but I adored jar jar binks as an eight year old boy and didn't understand why he was thereafter sidelined. This makes me also question whether criticisms by adults of the new content is a reflection of what we actually loved growing up. Could a character as weird as Yoda make it into a film now without catering much stronger to people eager to deconstruct him into eg orientalist stereotypes? Would Luke really be allowed to kiss his sister? Would Han Solo be allowed to shoot first, really?
Even the sexualization of Leia—look I'm into pulp fiction, I understand what shallow sexual stereotypes can deliver in terms of entertainment, it wasn't and still isn't crazy. You can see the same phenomenon in the current explosion of mass-published erotica ("romance"). But the stories I've heard about what Fisher was subjected to make me look at the fandom with pretty severe prejudice. It makes nerds look bad, and I also think the success of Indiana Jones shows that this wasn't necessary. It's also not the easiest thing to explain to a child or teenager who grasps something of the power dynamic between Jabba the Hutt and Leia but doesn't have the social knowledge or, frankly, cynicism to make the sense of it we do as adults.
