Yup, it should have been an older, maybe even middle aged Anakin Skywalker still learning the ways of the force. Maybe a nice little move would have been to have him still wearing a similar armor, as a member of the Jedi Order fighting in the clone wars. We never see how he got so badly disfigured by the new trilogy, but only given the sense that it was through years and years of constant combat in the service of the emperor after falling to the Dark Side.
There are dozens of ways to have made a better prequel trilogy, but none of them were used.
Probably the most sickening part for me was when they introduced the Midiclorians or whatever. They basically reduced the whole philosophy of the Force, as laid out by Yoda in Empire Strikes back, to something utterly materialistic, inane and anti-spiritual. Leaving things as mysterious is far better.
Yes, the Midichlorians absolutely ruined the mystical connotations of the Force.
It was no longer “Do or do not, there is no try”, where belief in your abilities and a strong connection to the Force was all anybody needed to move a rock, or an entire spaceship.
Now it was “sorry, your midichlorian count just isn’t sufficient to move an object of that mass.”
Idiotic.