I don't belive palp was bluffing, except when he was lying to the dumbass anakin. Palpatine couldn't possibly forseen the exact ways of the battle. He did need windu alive to turn anakin, but he wouldn't leave Windu the chance to kill him if he was bluffing, windu could have killed him before the arrival of anakin, as windu needed few minutes too realise he has to kill Palp. Palp couldn't possibly predict that the jedi would wait a bit and then decide to strike, that would meant reading the mind of the jedi, proven by the fact that he afterwards is enable to find yoda or obi-wann or predict vader's treason. As for Yoda vs. palp, it's obviuosly palpatine was weaker: He fails to kill Yoda when he first has the chance and then tries to run away, but yoda jumps in front of him and stops him. During the fight, palpatine can'twin with lightsaber, tries to throw the small shuttles at Yoda, but fails again, and he can't stop the last shuttle thrown by Yoda. Than, in the end yoda pushes his lightning right into him and throws him, it's only the huge luck that yoda was closer to and ending of that shuttle and falls, palpatine barely grabs because he was taller and had something to grab on, he was also not close to the ledge and had more time to rebalance. And afterwards Palpatine thinks Yoda is dead and send clones to find the Body.
But if some hardcore sw-ers are here, Can they answer why Obi-wann doesn't strike anakin dead, though he believes that luke had to kill Vader and why doens't he fight Vader in the dead star? And why do the chars in the original series seem more crappy than those from the new trilogy?(except Palp) Is it just the fact that they couldn't make any good fightining scenes back then?Or was Vader not trained to become stronger so he doesn't kill Palpatine.