Hm. I basically disagree with the OP, I think,. I do feel like the prequels were pretty awful, or at any rate that they managed to be clunkiest at the moments that should have been the most amazing and emotional--but the structural stuff the OP objects to is all stuff I liked, at least in itself.
Except maybe Darth Maul--I don't have strong feelings either way on him, and I do think he was neat and maybe could have held out a little longer. Mind you, I also like that the prequels featured lots of big showy villains who appeared and were taken down in quick succession, and that their quick defeats were in keeping with the basic idea of the thing: that, although they were real and scary and powerful, they were also pawns, put on the board as enemies everyone could worry about in ways that funneled power to Palpatine.
For the same reason, I kinda liked the trade war in theory.
And Anakin falling through his personal love, and his desire to make things OK on that personal level, to have what he wants . . . I think that's great. (Again, in theory; on screen, the love story featured some amazingly bad writing, acting, directing, etc.) Anakin needs to be sympathetic--a Jedi who falls, not a scheming dick. Makes his deeply horrible deeds all the more deeply horrible; articulates the idea of what a fallen Jedi is.
Padme dying in childbirth was epically cheeseball in practice, yeah. I do like the way it set up Palpatine's lie to Anakin, about him having killed her--I think it really works in the Star Wars setting to imagine bad guys who, in part, are motivated by their conviction that they are evil and irredeemable.