the shields really didn't appear to do a damn thing as far as I could tell. I remember the "double front" thing now that you mention it, but I'm not sure what those shields actually accomplished.
I think the in-universe explanation is that the shields were double front to protect against fire from the laser turrets on the Death Star, but when Vader and his TIE fighters hit the fighters from behind, the front shields didn't do any good.
This has always been fine with me. These are fighters, and it would be silly for the fighters to be invulnerable. They are small, and they have decent engines, decent weapons, and (at least X-Wings) even have a hyperdrive. It would be hard to believe they could have all that and also impenetrable shields. As with jet fighters in real life, their best defense is to blow up attackers before being attacked, or avoid the attack completely. If you can hit a modern jet with a missile you likely destroy that jet, and similarly if you can get a solid laser hit on a "snub fighter" you likely destroy it.
If you accept the LucasArts video game as canon, "double front" disables all shields to the rear, using the full output of the shield generators toward the front.
the shields on Hoth did what exactly?
The in-universe explanation was that the base was secure inside its shield bubble; the ships in orbit couldn't breach the shield. So the Imperial Walkers were landed somewhere outside the perimeter of the shield, then walked up until they could attack the shield generator.
I must admit I've never bought this. If you handwave a bit, maybe you can make it make sense: they Imperials know the rebels have multiple bases, and they want to capture people alive for interrogation to find other rebels; they could have swatted the base from orbit but it would leave a smoking crater, so they wanted to take the shield down and take prisoners. This seems inconsistent with the Empire that shot down escape pods in the first movie.
Also, I have really never bought the idea that the ground base was able to protect the transports by firing some sort of weapon at the ships in space, from the ground. But never mind.
I don't recall any shields in Star Wars. ;-)
One more: spacecraft hangars didn't have airlocks; just force fields, and the spacecraft could simply fly through the force field while atmosphere didn't leak out. I've never understood how exactly that's supposed to work.
And one more: a major plot point of Return of the Jedi was that the partially-completed new Death Star was protected by a shield generator on Endor. Until that shield was disabled, the rebels couldn't even attack the Death Star.