That is true, but you're wrong in saying that the original trilogy didn't place these jedi "front and center". In fact, if anything, the "new ones" walked the walk, and the originals only talked the talk. Benkept saying that without Luke, everything would be lost, the empire would win, etc., etc., (while Yoda pointed out there was another) as if this one jedi was the difference between victory and defeat of the whole war between the empire and the rebels.
I think you're placing more importance on vague statements than is really warranted. Especially when those statements don't align with the actions of the subsequent film.
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-The-Empire-Strikes-Back.html BEN
It is you and your abilities the
Emperor wants. that is why your
friends are made to suffer.
LUKE
And that is why I have to go.
BEN
Luke, I don't want to lose you to
the Emperor the way I lost Vader.
LUKE
You won't.
YODA
Stopped they must be. On this
all depends. Only a fully trained
Jedi Knight with the Force as his
ally will conquer Vader and his
Emperor. If you end your training
now, if you choose the quick and
easy path, as Vader did, you will
become an agent of evil.
Yes Yoda says that everything depends on stopping Vader & the Emperor. But- is that placing special importance on the Jedi? I'm sure someone told would-be assassins of Hitler that everything relied on them getting the job done, doesn't mean the war didn't still end after they had failed.
Of course, if you actually watch RotJ, this notion is preposterous. Yes, he convinced Vader to kill Palpatine, but I'm pretty sure the blastwave from the core reactor explosion ignited by the Falcon would also do the trick.
Even this statement is wrong mate. Luke didn't convince Vader to kill the Emperor, Luke convinced Vader that the bond they had, father and son, was more important than his bond to the Emperor. There's a very big difference between "I need to kill this guy" and "I need to help my son".
The Emperor died moments before the Rebel Fighters entered the death star via the surface, at least portrayed in the movie. And in the time it takes them to hit the reactor, Luke though exhausted at having been electrocuted for 30 seconds, manages to help his dad to the hangar bay, have a heart to heart, drag him onto a shuttle and ditch the place before it blows. Pretty sure that the Emperor, unencumbered with a father to support, could have made that same evacuation in half the time had he not been busy with death and all.
Like I said, the Jedi stories in the original trilogy are personal stories against a wider conflict. The goals of that conflict are becoming a Jedi and defeating the Emperor. Luke confronts Vader not to win the war, but to become a Jedi, and he confronts the Emperor to defeat him- not to again, win the war.
Look at how Luke defeats the Emperor: he defeated him by refusing to kill Vader. How is that going to win the war? It wont. But it will win the personal conflict.
End of Jedi is actually a war examined at different levels. There's the macro, impersonal and huge space battle. There's the very personal father vs son in the throne room. And there's the personal, small-unit conflict on the moon with rank and file soldiers and rebels. None of them is more important than the other, they're three aspects of one conflict and each have importance and have a role in the victory.