Sorry for the extremely belated reply. I also agree that the author's intent is not paramount, and I don't feel the need to change my interpretation to match GL's, but it still surprised me that his intent wrt Palpatine was so vastly different from what most people perceived. And it did make me kind of curious as to what a well-meaning Palpatine would look like. Even if he believes the end justifies the means, starting galaxy-wide wars and blowing up entire planets in order to end government corruption seems like, idk, burning your house down to prevent thieves from stealing your property or something... so clearly well-meaning!Palpatine is way more crazy than self-seeking!Palpatine. Though that might actually explain the apparent discrepancy between his cleverness in the prequels and comparative stupidity in RotJ.