I always felt that the Clone Wars as they were should've began in earnest in TPM's timeframe escalating from the more low-intensity proxy conflicts portrayed. Then the clones introduced as a highly mobile vanguard force that the Jedi employ to keep the Republic together against the sheer industrial might of the CIS while the Republic at large desperately tries to cobble together a galactic force of conscripts and volunteers for a grueling decade-long war. Instead of the clones being the galactic army of a few million at most against trillions of droids at least.
In the OG continuity they did.
The Stark Hyperspace conflict, the Trade Wars in Luceno's cloak work all laid the ground work for the factions and conflict.
It also implies that Old Republic was not worth fighting for if they couldn't muster up militias (except Rahm Kota) into a coherent fighting force. It's not, but characters in these movies don't know that.
I think the short length is fine when you consider the facts that the war was always nothing more than a means for Palpatine to take total control of the galaxy and that the institutional rot of the Republic's democratic system had been there for a long time and Palpatine merely took advantage of it in order to create a situation by which he is able to take total control of the galaxy. The issue is that there's no real human element to the conflict since it's made up entirely of mass produced weapon systems led by the occasional proper sentient who, by nature of the limited cast, are almost entirely confirmed to survive until the very end of the conflict if not all the way into the GCW considering the amount of Clone Wars veterans in both sides' command staff.
I think it'd also add to the theme of the corruption and decay of the Old Republic if it's having to essentially press-gang sentients into combat because far too few are actually signing up to fight for it, with the resulting force being a totally dysfunctional and demoralized clusterfuck that breaks and runs against droid assaults until the Jedi and the clones have to bail them out (except where they are actually motivated troops fighting on their home turf). Then Palpatine swoops in promising to deal with the dysfunction and chaos and turns it into the core of the (non-Stormtrooper) Imperial Army.
This is the difference between the Clone Wars and Filoni Warz
In the 80s/90s George Lucas left Star Wars for dead. It was during that time a group of talented men and women expanded it into a beautiful cosmology.
With the prequels, another group of men and women expanded the conflict and universe. The Clone Wars did involve locals fighting. many of these groups existed before the Clone Wars such as Rendelli's fleets and the Trade Federation's Lucrehulk's armadas.
On the New Republics side were Judicials like Tarkin, Peallon, Jan Dodonna, and Dallin Jace while the Seps had men like Bomo GreenBark or Gil Decor
The droids and Clones were the bulk of both armies with volunteers surrounding them. That had three advantages.
The first was Palpatine managed to use the actual Clone Wars to exhaust the galaxy and mark the people with rebellious spirit as malefactors in the eyes of the galaxy. Any rebellion led by...say Gil Dezor would instantly be hated by ordinary people for continuing the conflict.
The second was that with both armies core being under his control; he largely controlled the conflict. Sure, bioSeps could keep fighting, but without the droids they'd be vastly outnumbered against Clones and Republic forces.
Finally, it allowed for Palpatine to determine those he could corrupt into service and those who were noble. The smart ones like Dodona faked their death or retired. The dumb ones were heroic, spoke out, and got crushed.
