All fair points I suppose, but I've tried to watch it more than once, and it just makes me want to fall asleep. From an historical view, it seemed (at least according to what I read) that Paramount mostly approved it while panicking, due to the unexpected success of the first Star Wars. As you admitted, the franchise had been dead for a decade besides reruns, and I also read that initially, some of the cast weren't too thrilled about coming back. It was a risky move on the studio's part, but I think they were just so determined to beat Lucas at his own game, that it overrode the rest of their thinking.