I realized that this has a sort of reverse parallelism with a shot near the beginning of A New Hope, where a Star Destroyer passes over the camera in the opposite direction:
The similarity of these two shots may be coincidental, but the fact that the ships are in the same position relative to the camera while going in opposite directions does illustrate the contrast between these two time periods. At this point in Revenge of the Sith, there are still Jedi working towards peace and justice in the Republic, but by the time of A New Hope, they're "all but extinct" in the "dark times" of the Empire, as Obi-Wan tells Luke.
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Last year, I realized a connection between the names of the Sith lords in Star Wars and their characters. Since Revenge of the Sith is the movie with the most Sith lords (Tyrannus, Sidious, and Vader) and deals the most with their nature, I thought I'd add this point here too.
Most of the names of the Sith lords come ultimately from Latin. Maul is from molere, which means to grind. Tyrannus is the Latin word for tyrant. Sidious seems to come from insidious, which is from the Latin insidiae, which means ambush or trickery. Even Plagueis, who is only mentioned, has a Latinate name; it's similar to plague, which comes from plangere, to beat or to strike. Vader is the exception. While it's pronounced differently, vader is the Dutch word for father.
In the same way that Vader's name comes from a different language family, his motivation for becoming a Sith lord is different from the others'. Sidious's goal is clearly the acquisition and maintaining of power. ("Unlimited power!") The motivations of Maul and Tyrannus really aren't explored to a great degree, but they seem similar to Sidious's.
Vader, on the other hand, throws in his lot with Sidious and becomes a Sith lord primarily to save Padmé from his premonitions of her death. He does want power (over death), but his desire for power isn't a selfish one like Sidious's is.
