>>95863788
>Why didn't they do this more often?
Costs and Tarkin Doctrine. When most officers are trained to think brutal repression and having the biggest guns can solve any situation, it leads to retardation like the Death Star.
>it's one of the *very* few positive depictions the Empire has
In the sense that it's shown to be effective, sure. But the ISB gal does note in the last page that she isn't sure the locals are truly loyal to the Empire or just pretending (not that there is much of a difference at that point).
The ending is also open to interpretation with the kid picking up a piece of the jedi statue being an implied counterargument to the ISB glowie's report that they successfully erased any trace of jedi culture.
It does work well with Motti's "sad devotion to a ancient religion" line. It'd make sense that the Empire would raze all jedi temples, grind all jedi statues to dust and force people to change names if they share it with a jedi, thus erasing all trace of jedi from the galaxy.
And anyone who pretends they ever existed is sent to COMPNOR for reeducation.