yeah yoda wouldve owned him if he still had the robe [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img],
and i dont think palpatine intentionally got defeated, sids is not even close to the lvl of close combat mastery as mace, and as you noticed mace not only BLOCKED his ultra powerfull lightning, he reflected it as wel ( btw this part of the post is not for you knives[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img]), sids knew already he would win because of anakin, if anakin didnt show up however, mace would've ended the empire right there

edit: knives could you tell me how you did that swampy desert effect in your sig