I actually do love both battles, but I actually have to give the edge to the New Hope battle simply because that battle is the narrative focus of the story. In Rogue One The narrative focus of the story is on the planet surface, making the space battle secondary. In A New Hope, everything hinged on the space battle making it far more dramatically intense. The space battle in Return of the Jedi suffers from similar narrative split, but I would have to give even that battle the edge over Rogue One simply because space battle in Return of the Jedi at least featured one of our main characters. IMHO, and as always, your mileage may vary. Speaking entirely for myself, I was never really all that impressed with Rogue One. While the space battle was visually impressive, I didn't find the characters particularly engaging nor the story all that interesting. Hell, most people seemed to walk out of the theater talking about the Darth Vader scene, and that was a last-minute addition to the story.
Not only is the ANH battle the narrative focus, it's constructed in such a way as to tell a complete and coherent story in and of itself. There's peaks, valleys, pacing, small victories, turns and even a twist at the climax.
Like seriously, it's no coincidence that the space battle in ANH 1) takes up a shocking percentage of the script given that it's mostly action and just the third act climax, 2) was one of the very first things Lucas started working on visualising even before he'd shot a single frame of footage anything else in the movie, 3) was the LAST thing they locked down in the edit before turning it in (and promptly taking it back out a week after release for extra ADR work, but that's another story.)
ANH takes the time to introduce a whole new mini-cast of characters that are the pilots. Explains both the stakes of the meta story and the personal stakes that is Luke, Han & Leia's character dynamic. Spends time building suspense and anticipation before the battle with the approach and report-in. Makes sure the audience is clear what's going on at all times, shows how the baddies are reacting; move/counter-move. Has the pilots meaningfully interact. Shows the plan proceed, then go totally off the rails, killing off characters one-by-one until it's just the hero and villain in a one-on-one showdown...and the clock is ticking the whole way through.
The problem with the TFA battle is the same thing that's the problem with the TFA as a whole: it's a cargo cult of a movie. Abrams has certainly seen a Star Wars movie and knows what they look like, but without any real knowledge (or it seems, interest) in the thematic underpinnings or narrative structure that actually go in to making these things, he just assembles his little Star Wars-like effigy, blindly copying the surface level details in hope that the Movie Blockbuster Gods will accept his offering and bestow the Star Wars Magic upon him. And that's how we get a half-arsed sequel trilogy.
TFA's version of the space battle finale is: -
"let's go blow up a thing!"
"OK, we're blowing up a thing!"
*insert random effects shots, mostly about how one pilot--who should have died at the top of act one--is impossibly doing all the work while a bunch of nothing characters they never bothered to even introduce are killed off because who cares!?*
"OK, we blew up the thing, every one cheer and roll credits!"
Of course it doesn't help that it's painfully obvious that TFA's entire third act was an 11th hour arse-pull. I mean they just drop Starkiller Base in the middle of act two without ANY context and take a 90 degree plot turn because they can't actually decide if the movie is about a McGuffin, a character, or the friends they made along the way...
