Although you can take my opinions with a grain of salt, after all I like Star Trek too. Especially the craptastic original series (which single handedly has more things wrong with it than most other science fiction combined).
Surely. You. Can't. Be. Serious. What. Kind. Of. Person. Doesn't. Think. That. Reversing. The. Polarity. Is. The. Best. Way. To. Mind. Meld. With. A. Rock. Honestly. Jim. Either. She's. Dead. Or. She. Canna. Tak. Any. Mure. 
I actually watched the entire original series in the last 3 weeks, and I. am. falling. in love. with the. Shatner Beat. method. of speech.
And after watching the entire Original Series I finally get the popularity. Its not the science, nor the stories, nor the special effects. It is the characters. The popularity of Star Trek is essentially a cult of personality centered around Kirk, Spock and Bones. And they have GREAT backup characters, Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, Nurse whats her face, Chekov, Yeoman Rand. They all excude a sort of ubercompetence, combined with a real humanity that makes you like them, and want to be them.
TNG and Deep Space Nine (I am not familiar enough with anything after DS9 to comment on it), added good stories, and good special effects, and even more fleshed out characters. They are better shows, BUT the characters on THOSE shows STILL don't invoke that magical quality that the original series characters do.
Picard will handle the situation and then reflect on it. Kirk would handle the situation, romance any unsuspecting young ladies, punch the bad guy in the mouth, and THEN reflect on it.
Different shows, different characters. Both still awesome.
Now Star Wars. It is all just so awesome, even the problems are awesome.
I like it when Luke says "Awe, but I was going to Tahotchi station to pick up some power convertors", because even someone as cool as Luke Skywalker says something gay every once in a while.
I cheer for the brave Gungans going out to fight the Battle droids.
I sing along with the Ewoks.
I cringe with discomfort and delight from exactly how much Episode 2 Anikan reminds me of myself at that age.
I smile at R2D2 the whole time, because he is the only one (besides the audience) who knows the WHOLE story.
I could go on for days.
But with Star Wars it is the world. We like the characters, but we like the world better.
Luke, Han, Leia, Vader, and such, they are all fine and dandy, but none of them can compare to the vision of an AT-AT walking across the plains of Hoth. Not even Lando Calrissian himself is as cool as riding speeder bikes on the forest moon of Endor. Nor is Obi-Wan himself a match for the sheer IDEA of Jedi.
The original movies expanded this world with each film. When they were done we KNEW the world. We knew every little bit and had 15 years to think about it. In that time it all solidified and became something bigger than it was. So instead of enjoying how awesome Episode 1 was, we just sat there saying "What the &$*#%T is a Gungan". Battledroids? Trade Federation? Sith?
Episode 1 added to the world (as did episode 2), and we weren't expecting it, it had happened in all the other films as well, but we weren't expecting it. Everything else had simply had to much time to become solid in our heads, and then they went adding Gungans and Trade Federations and Battledroids and Genosians and everything else.
The fact is that Gungans, Trade Federations, Battledroids, racing pods, Naboo fighter ships and all that are just as awesome as Gammorean guards, Boba Fett, and AT ATs.