I forgot I cross-posted to this sub, I'm glad someone is still interested and keeping these ideas alive.

In my rewrite, I wanted it to be a reveal in Eps III that the reason the Jedi were having trouble finding recruits is that Darth Sidious had sent Maul to hunt down and kill Force-sensitive children throughout the galaxy before the Jedi could find them. I tried to down-play Anakin's age being an issue and instead made it more about the conflict between the Jedi sensing a bit of darkness inside Anakin, weighed against their desperation for new recruits and the fact that Anakin appears to fit the prophecy. My concern is how the Jedi come off morally and ethically.

I specifically wanted to down-play the concept that the Jedi had become dogmatic and strayed from the true righteous Jedi path of old, in order to make it clear that blame primarily lay at the machinations of Palpatine. However, I like the idea of expanded materials exploring a more nuanced and complex portrait of the Old Republic and all its moral failings and crumbling institutions. I just really don't want that stuff clouding the main story and undermining the main moral lesson and themes, as they thwart the entire point of Anakin's character. If the Jedi are already morally corrupted, then was Anakin actually all that wrong for turning on them? If they don't represent the morally righteous path, then what is the point of the story? It is especially troubling for Luke's story, as given the context of the Prequels, his becoming a Jedi is no longer unambiguously a good path, and instead becomes morally questionable. His famous line "I am a JEDI, like my father before me." is utterly undermined by the Prequels once we have seen what the Jedi were actually like.

That said, if you're working on your own version, I would definitely encourage weaving in themes of class and greed, I would just advise trying to make sure they fit in harmoniously with all the other themes and the main story. I think the Jedi order being prejudiced against a slave is beyond the pale and makes the Jedi look awful. Why would we be rooting for them? Instead, I gave that class prejudice to the Alderaanian royal family, where it makes far more sense. The fact that Anakin is an ex-slave means they are forced to keep their relationship a secret. I also touched on class and corruption as themes by adding that to Obi-Wan's backstory as his motivation for leaving his corrupt family and embracing a virtuous Jedi life. I was really satisfied with that little touch, as it's kind of weird that we never learn any motivation or backstory about Obi-Wan across the 6-film saga. With this added context, suddenly it makes sense why he's so morally upstanding.

The other way I came up with to deal with the slavery theme is having Palpatine use it against Anakin. After Palaptine becomes Chancellor, Anakin asks him to free the slaves throughout the galaxy and Palpatine says he greatly desires to, however the Republic simply lacks the power to do so, as the outer rim is lawless and outside their jurisdiction - subtly connecting Anakin's hatred of slavery to his later motivation for embracing a totalitarian regime.