I'll gladly take the role of Lucas-hater, although I consider myself more of a Lucas-disdainer.
Yes, I've seen all the movies, and I still think the first trilogy was a great achievement in film.
But the new trilogy lacks a lot of what made the first trilogy good. Some of these things are just the nature of prequels--there's no real surprises in Phantom Menace/Attack of the Clones simply because we know where the story is going to go in the future. Lucas based the first trilogy on pulp fiction/film, which is known for cliffhangers--something sadly absent in Phantom.
The bad acting (not just from the inexperienced kid, but also from the "star" names) cannot be excused, and has to be attributed to Lucas, because these actors have acted better in other films.
Visually, the films remain stunning. In fact, the second time I saw the Phantom Menace (I had promised my class that I would take them before I found out how bad the film was), I simply turned my ears off and simply watched the film for the backgrounds and the effects. There are so many shots that seemed to have jumped right off the cover of Amazing magazine, but yet are "realistic" in the context of the world.
Story-wise, the new stuff just doesn't match up.
I truly hope that Attack will be better. But I don't plan to see the film the first week for sure, and people are going to have to come back from it and let me know that there's more of the kind of stuff shown in the second trailer than the first to be able to convince me to go.