Yes.

Threepio was both useful and a straight man for Artoo, and had some of the funniest lines in the series translating for his counterpart. "And you said it was pretty here!" is one, and the line in tESB implying they turned up the heat in Leia's room on Hoth and melted it, was a classic that by itself made the score Threepio: 1, Jarjar: 0 in terms of amusing quotes.

How? This strikes me as immature lashing out at a guy who doesn't rubber-stamp the "cool" impulsive desires of the young characters. Did you forget that he was RIGHT about Anakin? Also, Yoda led the clones into battle, successfully, for the first time ever. That's got to be some sort of record for innovation.

At least they won a fight, unlike the Gungans.

Thank you, oh master of Force philosophy and techniques. On WHAT do you base this?

Best at what? Doing stuff, or living up to your self-created ideal of a Jedi's "approach to the Force"? I lean toward agreeing with you, second to maybe Obi Wan or Mace Windu, but not in the "approach to the Force" way.

Why? What did they do, and how was it better without them? The reason they were eliminated was so that a dictator could take control of the galaxy, which they would never have allowed. That whole reign of the Empire, and the existence of a planet-destroying battle-station or two is the result of a galaxy without Jedi. The Jedi allowed the galaxy to do without a standing army.

That is the point at which the books started sucking. Yes, the trimming down and bringing the writers to heel and imposing some sort of order on what was fast becoming a completely contradictory mess of borderline fan-fiction was probably a good thing and a necessary step, but in the old days, with so much variety, there was more of a chance of coming across a good story or two. The idiots currently playing a deranged form of literary hacky-sack with the setting and characters are NOT an improvement on Timothy Zahn. As it is, the plotlines are drawn out far too much in order to fit into their 9-book series, and the plausibility suffers.

Her books sucked, and had some of the most absurd reasons for trashing the heroes and protagonists and institutions of the series. They were nothing more than fan faction, pure and simple, and if, as you seem to be implying here, someone actually came out and exiled that crap from the official continuity, I am rather impressed with that decision. The woman absolutely refused to write anything other than HER "Mando" plotline, and her books in the Legacy of the Force series were always a jarring wrench from the main storyline to follow up on her extended epilogue to the Republic Commando series.

Yeah, more or less.