I've grappled with Unicorn for a long time, but after a recent rewatch I think I fully understand why. It's not entirely unlike the other UC OVAs. Nearly all of them had some level of fucking with the original continuity, they just weren't so directly associated like Unicorn was trying to be. 0080 War in a Pocket being the one I believe does the least amount of embellishment.

>A secret, new version of the RX-78 prepared for deployment.
Alright, cool. This changes very little.
>08th MS Team had the ground-type Gundam units.
A little weird, but it's focusing on another vantage point of the war that we didn't see. They're basically GMs.
>0083 Stardust Memory had more new Gundams, a colony drop, and fed directly into Zeta with the creation of the Titans.
I think the colony drop cheapens everything happening in the surrounding lore. It's redundant. There wasn't a need to double dip for the Federation to create their gestapo faction. I still love this OVA for everything else.
>Unicorn relies entirely on CCA and the broader UC for the setting. Makes a point to give the MC a pretty on-brand "Gundam youth protagonist" storyline. Gives the protagonist an in-universe literal Char clone. The Gundam units are extremely overpowered.
They could have made a storyline about the aristocracy controlling the Federation, and Zeon gaining proper independence by virtue of the lost original UC charter being found in the format of another backdrop like the rest of the OVAs. Instead it hinged heavily on inserting itself into UC proper like it's "one of the guys" with 0079, Zeta, ZZ and CCA. But then I finally realized that from a real life perspective, it's simply the actual first Build Fighters show and I shouldn't care too much and just enjoy the animation.