People who think Palpatine could've beat Mindu are missing the point. The scene was Lucas's (horribly written) attempt at contrasting the scene to the ending of Episode VI
Palpatine let's Windy & a bunch of Jedi rush him at the capital after he intentionally outs himself to the heroes. And despite how bad of an idea that obviously is, he goes ahead because he's that over-confident in his manipulation of Anakin
Then, in Return of the Jedi, Palpatine intentionally outs himself, to lure in Luke & the Rebel army to blow up his half finished space station. And then he goes there personally, after leaking the plans, despite how bad of an idea that obviously is. So he gets in the same situation as decades ago where he's manipulating Vader and playing father against son. Only Luke (unlike Mindu) refused to keep fighting and Vader (unlike Anakin) learned a goddamn lesson for once, resulting in the entire situation backfiring on Palpatine.
Both Windu & Vader had the power to kill Palpatine in those scenarios. And in both scenarios, Palpatine was over-confident like every Sith. The contrast was intentional, Lucas is just too bad of a writer to convey it without his ex-wife as an editor or a better director.
And yes, this is reason #142 on why TROS is disappointing.
