whatever, doesn't prepare them to deal with when the dark side tries to interfere? That's crappy training.

I'll defend plot holes in the original trilogy and the new movies forever, but those prequels don't deserve your defending. All three of them were designed as George Lucas vanity projects that would also sell toys to little kids. That last prequel, especially, had the unenviable job of trying to draw a straight line between the first two crapfests Lucas produced and the first good movie he had made 20+ years earlier. But it was still just there to sell merchandise.