they're single-biome locations with colonies and not really fully-developed civilizations

I don't see how a few people per planet (at most) can manage the ambitions of a few billion other people. What about corporations? What about inter-system wars? What about commerce? What about cold wars focused on just out-doing the other team for propaganda reasons?

I don't think that Force use could have halted technological growth, directly, in the same way as magic has in LOTR. There are too few Jedi for all ambitious people in the galaxy to have pursued the Force. There doesn't appear to be a mass practice of the Force (unless it's in some KOTR stories that I haven't read).

OK, I am too lazy and disgusted to re-watch the prequels so I am going to give this one to you.

Yes. This is not the article itself, it's just a link to the article with a short quote.

If the evidence is that most of the characters we read/watch can or do read, then where does the "well okay but probably not the rest" assumption come from?

Technological stasis is a non-factor in a magical setting (which this is).

Covered in the article.

It gets even worse once you consider that the technology in the KOTOR era is basically identical to what we see in ROTJ. That's 4000 more years.

Hens the term "functionally illiterate".

That just means that some people know how to read and write. Not the majority.

This explains the complete lack of technological progress in the SW universe between KOTR and ROTJ. If very few people can read, then there are even fewer scientists. And the probability that somebody on the level of Einstein learned to read and moved technology or science forward is even smaller.

Yup, I got that it was about the shape of the ax head, although I didn't notice the bat'leth-shaped ax. Nice eye! But the lirpa was the right-most weapon on that same rack.

Huh. So nobody noticed the Vulcan Lirpa on the stand next to all the axes in the museum? I thought it was pretty awesome.

LOL - imagine that. I also wouldn't sign up for that. However, personally I would rather not have my character rape people off-screen either. If this movie is even a little rapey, I am probably going to pass.

he generally played more to standard tropes or even cliches than anything particularly interesting scientfically.

Superboy punched the universe and made it not happen. Or in this case Amy clapped her hands. A lot.

I certainly did. And I searched on the internet for the ID number. What was that supposed to mean? Was that a reference to UNIT and the old Dr. Who who had a car?

RTD had a bunch of science or scienciness in his episodes. Even in the worst ones. This was pure hand-wavium at its worst. Fantasy, pure and simple, without an ounce of rationality.