I do want to throw in a couple pennies; "Mudd's Women" was speaking against sex trafficking and drug abuse
I disagree with that. The episode seemed to be concerned mostly with showing the male crewmembers of the Enterprise swooning over the women's beauty and drug-fuelled sex powers. And Mudd's dragging them around on his ship wasn't sex trafficking, but iirc the women where there on their own accord because they were looking for wealthy husbands, which they got by the end with the miners and the main woman's crigney speech going "Oh I will be a greedy bitch and you'll love me, because that's what you secretly want!"
As to it being anti-drugs, I think it was more a message of "the women don't need a drug to enhance their beauty, they are beautiful because of their charms and confidence and because they park in with boys at night"
Being made (slightly more than) a decade earlier, TOS couldn't complete with Star Wars' tighter action scenes. Then again, the way people griped about the Obi Wan/"Darth" saber fight being "too slow"*, that's one instance of TOS being better overall - despite the lack of special effects, while fighting a big walking tire factory given all that rubber used in the Gorn costume. That said, Star Wars' use of stunt doubles were a lot more thoughtful, and one didn't need the 35mm film restoration or a TV set made after 1997 to notice the stunt doubles (and the number of medium- and close-up shots to doubly ensure the audience knew they were doubles.)
Sorry but I have to disagree with that too, I thought the Sword Fight was pretty well done, real life swords are very heavy and even so, I cannot imagine anybody preferring the awkward flailing of the Gorn Fight.
And as to Star Trek being a decade older...that would work if TNG didn't have many of the same problems. Of course TNG still didn't have the budget of Star Wars, but even in TNG the few fight sequences were still awkward flailing (especially when Tasha was involved)
And, of course, Star Trek never had a "Holiday Special" made within a year of the franchise's premiere...
And not even that Holiday Special, and not even the Donny and Marie Osmond Star Wars special was even half as terrible as Star Trek V
Don't get me wrong, I like Star Trek (I wouldn't be here otherwise), and you raise many valid points, such as time, medium and target audiences of the two different franchises resulting in their differences in characters, production value and scope.
But I think the point still stands that the epic scope of Star War naturally drew more people in.
Like you mention enjoying Mudd's character, but when Star Wars created a character that's somewhat similar (Lando Calrissian) the movie went to an absolutely gorgeous city floating in the atmosphere of a gas giant, advanced the plot so that it led both to a turning point in Han and Leia's relationship and to a climactic showdown between Luke and Vader.
While Star Trek had us watch people flirting with each other and for a whole episode.
