I half-understand the pace, the lightsaber battles are much more exciting, but the long scenes about the politics that nobody cares about negate that.
Actors-wise; I love Ewan MacGregor. PERFECT for the role (although his hair in episode II is questionable). Hayden Christensen, less-so, but to play the role of Anakin Skywalker perfectly you'd need to be a god. So that's alright.
Humor in both trilogies is bad, the OT because of the time it was made, and the prequels because of bad writing. So, IMO the OT wins here, but it really doesn't much matter.
So all this is understandable to a degree, but Jar-Jar Binks. HOW?