I agree, but I honestly feel like that is more due to Kennedy seeing what Lucas went through with the Prequels, and trying to give a lot more latitude to creatives. But, that's pure speculation.
I'd be hesitant to attribute that level of narrative dictates to Kennedy alone. I always felt like it was Disney that seemed to be the source of "make it all like and/or centered around the originals!" vibe that ran through most of the early Disney era projects. Basically everything prior to the TCW revival and the High Republic, honestly.
The head of the studio's job isn't really to decide the overall creative direction in that way; and EP is mostly there to guide the storytellers through the business part of show business, and try to facilitate more than dictate. She would have input sure, but I've never once heard about her making pitches to herself.
It's just great little moments like that that make the OT stand out greatly. The ST and PT lack that.
I will say that in the case of the PT, that is mostly intentional and very necessarily baked into the type of story being told. It's not a story of a heroic group of friends coming together to defeat evil, it's the tragedy of a good person that became that evil that a heroic group of friends would later come together to defeat.
The nature of the main character dynamic was very narrowly focused by design, since it all pivots around Anakin's relationship to both Obi-Wan and Padme, and his inability to let go of attachment (which despite what so many people say, was indeed very present in the OT, or did everyone not pay any attention to the third act of tESB?) Another factor is they really only had two movies to do it, since the first of the trilogy was essentially a prologue.
In the case of the ST, it's not for lack of trying, and there is some very solid chemistry, but it feels forced at times. The original movie actors were cast specifically because of their chemistry; there's a reason Lucas did group auditions. Had one of those three turned down and backed out at that stage, it's likely that neither of the other two would have been hired, and Lucas would have instead selected a whole other trio.
What is the repetition? The biggest (and least forgivable) repetition is the damn planet killer. Which is almost tangential to the plot.
No you're right, there's absolutely nothing repetitious about a white bathrobe wearing nobody on a desert backwater dreaming of adventure in the wider galaxy, getting whisked into an adventure after meeting a wayward robot carrying information vital to the only insurgency group out there fighting the evil space fascists, led by a temperamental masked and cloaked black knight and his legions of faceless, white armored soldiers. And it's not like said nobody blasts their way off their backwater in a junk-heap pirate ship, meets an old pirate and his Wookiee co-pilot and goes to a weird alien bar (though not necessarily in that order), before going to a mechanized planet killing super-weapon, staging a jail break, and witnessing a mentor figure cut down with a laser sword . . . Oh wait . . .
We never see Darth Vader take out a single adult Jedi in Revenge of the Sith, do we?
Why would we expect that? Literally the only thing we hear about Vader killing a specific Jedi involved betrayal and murder, not godlike combat abilities (and even that turned out to be a mostly metaphorical account of his self-betrayal.)
As for the Jedi as a whole; again the only thing we're told is that he helped a massive military force hunt down and destroy them. I don't recall any mention in the OT of him going out and personally challenging each and every straggler to a duel.
He's seen striking down Cin Drallig in the Jedi Temple security recordings.
And in a deleted scene (the one that's actually considered canon) he also sneaks up on Shaak-tiand literally stabs her in the back. Very betrayal and murdery behavior if you ask me . . .
Yes. That's what we waited 20 years for: One guy. On security footage.
Sitting on false expectations you conjured up in your own imagination for 20 years is nobody's fault but your own.
Indeed, the way Lucas described how Vader started killing Jedi back before he'd decided to make him and Anakin the same person, mostly involved him luring them away and shanking them when they were unawares. It was only after Kenobi caught on to what he was up to that he confronted him and dumped his arse into a lava pit.
It was never meant to be anything other than a nasty and underhanded act.