Too lateI mean... yeah... in my opinion the prequels were a slightly better *polished* turd and the Disney films were the regular turds. All I'm saying is that the story/scripts were laid out years prior and were fleshed out. It was just executed really poorly (and some poor decisions by Lucas himself). Maybe I'm crazy, I don't know, but I think there are a few good qualities about those prequels.
It might just be because I'm one of the younger fans who grew up as the PT came out (though I've always preferred the OT, even as a kid), but I agree with you. Lucas stuck to his guns and didn't let people on the Internet tell him what to do. He had an idea of where the story was supposed to go and made it. The OT is better because editors stopped him from entirely indulging himself, and the PT would have worked with people commenting back on that core vision, but the six films at least tell one story.
I dislike the MCU movies on the whole personally, but they're clearly very beloved and successful. It seems to me that the wiser strategy here would have been to follow that mold. Pay respect to long-term fans' commitment by having certain storylines or references taken from weird EU material but have it integrate into a fresh vision of how all the moving parts in Star Wars work. The EU, to me, is proof that the continuing adventures of one family of space monarchs is NOT the core of what draws people to the series. Having Luke be the one to deliver some dampers on how just and noble the Jedi actually are is a little weird for that character, especially when you have one director who writes him as Space Jesus in Exile and another who wants to make a point about how a war veteran would actually feel about continuing such a struggle decades later. But fans have been very receptive to gray Jedi saying the exact same things Luke talks about in VIII time and again in random video games and comics and novels. The MCU has ripped off entire multi-film arcs from the comic books, but Star Wars for some reason chose to avoid the predictable Thrawn trilogy path to... remake ANH and then hand the series based in broad archetypal fantasy off to someone who does a bit more psychologically driven harder sci-fi. But this is all probably silly to say 'cause The Mandalorian is being helmed by MCU folks and seems to signpost a firm turn away from the third rail of extending the Skywalker clan's stories.