My take on Anakin is that he was meant to be a precocious, generous, insightful, audacious, imaginative and great-hearted boy whose great capacity for love - combined with his insecurities - caused his eventual fall. Later, this same capacity to love also redeemed him.
In TPM, Anakin is a beyond-his-years child engineer and superhuman pilot. (He's the only human who can pod race.). He helps Qui-Gonn devise a plan to repair the Naboo space craft by piloting a pod he has built himself. He sees it is the only plan available, has the confidence he can succeed, and thinks nothing of the personal danger. Qui-Gonn remarks that he "gives without any thought of reward." He understands Qui-Gonn and the rest are not there by accident, and he goes on to win the Battle on Naboo with his piloting skills.
Episode 2 should have shown us the flowering of these traits: a generous, fearless, insightful and imaginative leader, moved by love and generosity and guided by the force. He should have blossomed into a beloved and gifted leader, albeit sometimes at odds with (and a bit of a threat to the authority of) the emotionless Jedi Council. His eventual fall would be precipitous, shocking and sad.
A young leader like that would inspire love and devotion from those he met, and Padme's falling in love with him would be more believable. We could also see why Anakin would become so fatally attracted to her. Having met Padme just before being separated by his mother, Anakin transferred his maternal attachment to her. While not letting himself hope to reunite with his mother, his hope was redirected towards Padme.
Unfortunately, episodes 2 and 3 were so preoccupied with Anakin's fall that they never effectively showed his rise, nor gave much reason to even like him or mourn his fall. I think the Clone Wars cartoons at least make him likeable, but even they don't make us believe that he is quite the special person we are told he is.