I think the answer to that question lies in the ongoing books that have been written. Timothy Zahn's trilogy was great - a nice extension of the original movies, but somewhere about the 3rd or 4th trilogy written to take place after Return of the Jedi I suddenly got bored with them. It just became too much of the same old story. How many times can you go from being in charge of a galactic republic to being in mortal danger of losing everything before it becomes time to hand the reigns of power back over to the sith for safekeeping?

Didn't Zahn use cloaking devices in his trilogy? (just trying to keep it on topic).