If you actually read about the effects in the prequels, you would know that there were a lot of practical effects used, and if I'm not mistaken more than in any film from the OT. Lucas combined models, masks, and sets with CGI elements. If you OMG care for the results, so be it.
And your criticism of Anakin's age during the first movie means you're just another bitter fan who can't judge the movies fairly because they're not what you wanted to see (which is I'm guessing more "cool" action scenes). I have issues with the execution of that story arc, but not its conception.
In the end, your position is typical: a Gen-Xer who can't acknowledge the flaws of the the original trilogy (particularly the most inept installment) because houte viewing it through rose-colored, children's glasses, and conversely can't appreciate the merits of the prequels because you view those through a cynical, traditionalist adult prism.
I can't speak for him, but my own criticism of Anakin's age during the first movie isn't about it not being what I wanted to see. In fact, I'm not one of the Gen-Xers you refer to, I was born in 1984 and didn't even see the OT in its entirety for the first time until the mid-90s when I was 11 or 12, only a few years before TPM. Going into TPM, I didn't have the decades-long expectations that the people who'd seen the OT in theaters had. I was a fan of TPM when I first saw it, and it still has a place in my heart and on some days it's my favorite of the prequels - the dual of the fates is possibly the best dual in the whole saga.
But perhaps my biggest issue with the prequels is that they are not narratively consistent with some things that were said and seen in the OT. Like Anakin's age when Obi-Wan first meets him.
In ROTJ, Ghost Obi-Wan tells Luke, very clearly, that the first time he met Anakin, Anakin was already a great pilot. And then Obi-Wan meets Anakin, and Anakin is a kid. Some people say, 'he was a kid but he
was a great pilot too, he flew a plane in the movie, etc', but that doesn't sit well with me either. The way Ghost Obi-Wan said it, it clearly made it sound like Anakin was grown when they met.
Also, in ROTJ, Anakin - in the unmasking scene and especially when Ghost Sebastian Shaw shows up - is a 60-70 year old man. Which means he should've been 40-50 when he became Vader at the end of the PT, but he was supposed to be, like, what, 30 at most in ROTS?
In short, I feel like starting out with Anakin as a kid made things not line up with the OT.
That's not the only inconsistency either, there's also the whole thing with Leia saying she remembers her real mom in ROTJ even though she died at birth in ROTS.
It just feels like in some cases Lucas either didn't remember what his own movies said and didn't bother to check, or he just didn't care.
That is my opinion, and I'm not some bitter person who still has the bad taste of TPM opening day 1999 in my mouth, because one, at 14 years of age, I couldn't have been more excited upon leaving the theater, and two, well, I didn't actually see it on opening day.