Was Darth Maul just a PM marketing ploy and a plot device?

Because of the hype surrounding this obviously mean looking character and his ultimate lack of use in PM, it appears to me that Lucas invented this useless two dimensional character for two reasons:

1) To market PM to the masses. After all, there wasn't anything else about PM that stuck out enough to attract non-sci-fi fans. There was also more photos of him advertising PM than anything else.

2) He was invented in order to just get rid of the after thought that was Qui-Gon Jinn.

Originally Obi-Wan and Anakin were going to be about the ages they were in AOTC, but when he made them both younger he needed a mentor figure for the both of them, so this is when Qui-Gon came into being. And just to dispense of Qui-Gon, Lucas needed an equally dispensable character in order to kill him off, just so that he could continue with the Obi-Wan/Anakin story as he originally intended in AOTC.

Thoughts anyone?

Strilo edit: I don't really see this topic going anywhere constructive nor anywhere that hasn't been covered 100 times before.