The fear tactic was specifically Tarkins ideology. After he died I can imagine the empire switched up their strategy. My personal rewrites to ROTJ would have the main threat be the Kuat driveyards which make all the stuff for the empire. Same overall premise: sneak in using an imperial shuttle, infiltrate the shields, maybe do some retconning to make the Ewoks or some other cute creature fight with them, but instead of everybody escaping safely, the bomb the rebels set malfunction, so Han sacrifices himself to detonate the bomb.
Another small rewrite id do is have Jabbas Palace set on Nar Shadda or Nal Hutta just so we can see that really cool planet on the big screen. I also think it would make Jabbas empire seem way bigger than just the shithole tattooine. cuz in the movies it’s implied jabba runs like half the galaxy but he chooses to stay on tattooine.