No theft, just always agreed with it.
One of my gripes about the PT is that 1/3 of it has no central conflict... ANH, ESB, and ROTJ all revolved around a central, single, war. That's part of the very title, "Star Wars", to me. TPM was a relatively peaceful time, and tried too hard to get you quickly acclamated to the "politics" of the saga.
Nix E1... Make E2 E1... Make QGJ/OWK find Anakin at his 17-ish age. Have QG killed by Dooku (make Dooku much more sinister), and the Clone Wars start and all... Obi-Wan gets promoted to knight, and takes on Anakin as his Padawan (the advanced age thing REALLY would reinforce the council's resistance to training him despite his huge midichlorian count... It also ties well to Yoda's refusal in ESB to train Luke... Again, foreshadowing).
E2 (now E1) ends with the Clone Wars starting, OWK taking on Anakin as his Padawan who is pretty old but enough of the council believes he's the chosen one and such. QGJ's killed by Dooku who Anakin forms an early bond with and who he was already becoming too attached to.
Now make E2 out of the Clone Wars... You have that central conflict going on. Lots of Warrin' and things. Expand the Padme love story here... His mother's death as well. But make the Clone Wars something that are changing him internally... War's bringing out his darkest side, Palpatine's playing the puppet strings, etc.
And then make E3, E3 as it was, more or less. Kenobi and Anakin have aged from the war, Anakin's hidden thing with Padme, etc.
I just really feel the whole Trade Federation/Naboo bull**** was worthless, Anakin being a child when they find him was 100% worthless and adds nothing (to me, it makes even more sense if he's actually fairly old and Yoda's vehemently against his training), and so on and so forth.
But I totally agree with Scott on it. E1's an unnecessary film all together.
Oh, and I'm even cool with Jar Jar being in there in the "revised" E1/E2... Maybe cut him back some, but I'm not against him entirely either. Anakin as a child is my main gripe, and I'd gladly do without his part in the film (Lloyd that is). I'd say he'd be happy to oblige if he could turn back time.