The great George Lucas does not care about your needs, simple fan; he wants only to deliver the plot.
When discussing being approached about Star Wars VII, Lucas revealed that the team behind the film saw his stories, but scrapped them in favor of something that might actually please movie-goers:
They looked at the stories and they said 'we want to make something for the fans,' so I said 'all I wanted to do was tell a story-- what happened, you know, it started here and went there. It's all about generations and issues of fathers and sons and grandfathers; it's a family soap opera.'
If Lucas' focus on plot getting from a to b and generational soap opera issues doesn't clue you in to why there was a serious lack of meaningful development in the prequels, I don't know what will. Thank you for the Star Wars universe, George, but maybe your departure was for the best.
P.S. If you haven't yet heard the way Lucas describes his "breakup" with the series, this is worth a watch. As much as we all give him grief for the prequels, letting go seems like a really painful process, and he deserves a lot of credit for being so graceful about it.