I'll make a serious post contributing directly to the discussion instead of pretending that the nature of the thread as a thread has any standing in relevancy, and isn't a total waste of writing time. People on the forum who talk about this stuff all the time: try clicking on a different thread. Really. You'll feel better.
Midichlorians were perhaps an insult to the people who had watched the films from the context of their own religious beliefs. The Force was just ambiguous enough to have any number of sources. When it got turned into a scientifically verified thing, this ripped out any non-specific side of it.
This meant that all the crazy people who thought the Force was something they'd discovered (yes, they exist, and there are an oddly large number of them), suddenly had to face reality that it was an entirely in-universe thing and was not a reference to Yahweh, Allah, Brahma or Zeus. It also hit the enthusiasm of those who wanted it to be a specific reference to their own ideal of goodness in the tail.
It was like the power levels in Dragonball - instantly, the series sucks when you learn of this because you know who'll win - whoever has the highest midichlorian count. It removes an element of chaos and randomness within a nevertheless brilliant authorial scheme and reduces the plot to basic cause (great power) and effect (great victory).
Basically, the Force was great while people could attribute it to anything, that could not be measured and was essentially "fate" in the story.
