Red Superfly
You creepy little stalker
Um, haven't the droids in Star Wars always had emotions and self-preserving attitudes?
I personally think the daft droids attitude (not appearance) were one of the most consistent things of the PT to the OT. However, maybe it was too consistent for its own good.
In Return Of The Jedi, we see comedy droids being torturred. This works for the scene, because it shows that droids are capable of being hurt, and it's partially goofy and funny.
In the PT, the droids are supposed to be part of some great army. The Super Battle Droids are supposed to be these great hulking battle machines - and then in Episode III they turn out to be utter jokes.
It's like Lucas was intentionally making consistencies/inconsistencies that don't make sense.
The only decent droid was the droideka. They should have used an army of those, or made a bigger deal of them, because they were silent and powerful.