Just a quick response to some of the more recent discussion, particularly Outbound Flight’s suggestions and RogueLeader’s responses:

I don’t think the Death Star taking 19 years is an issue at all. Rogue One: “The Project has stalled.” It takes ages to build something the first time, then you can crank out duplicates or updated versions fairly easily.
The Jedi do wear hermit robes. That’s fine. So do real world monks of all kinds! Plus, you’re wrestling with practicality here - if you want to change that, you’ve got a huge amount of VFX editing to do throughout.
I didn’t think it was a problem that the First Order came up ‘from nowhere’ - the Empire had a huge infrastructure throughout the galaxy. That said, I do love the idea of fleeing Star Destroyers.
I think we should keep our hands off the Sequels, at least until they’re done.

You’re all right that this thread could quickly get out of hand. I think we should focus on top level goals before we get into minutiae or even specifics. (BTW, in real life I’m a ‘Solution Designer’, my job is to run projects from beginning to end for customers, where we always outline goals first, long before getting into requirements, then design the solution based on the limitations of the product. And prior to that I was a data analyst, so I have infinite tolerance for spreadsheets and reams of data.)

With that in mind, shall we try to put objectives in priority order? From my perspective only, and open to others’ opinions, I’d put:

Individual movies should be as enjoyable as possible
Individual movies should be as internally consistent and clearly plotted as possible
The saga as a whole should be as internally consistent and clearly plotted as possible
The saga as a whole should respect the canon of the TV series as far as reasonable
The saga as a whole should be as enjoyable as possible

Justification and expansion on the above:

INDIVIDUAL MOVIES SHOULD BE AS ENJOYABLE AS POSSIBLE
First in the list, because no other change should make a movie less fun. Individual movies are highlighted here rather than the full saga, because again, each individual should be decent. This item also leaves room for the removal of non-fun elements, like the Droid Factory, and the changes we’ve seen in traditional edits. This also naturally implies that we should use the best existing sources available.

INDIVIDUAL MOVIES SHOULD BE AS INTERNALLY CONSISTENT AND CLEARLY PLOTTED AS POSSIBLE
Because individual movies shouldn’t have to bend over backwards to adhere to the overall canon if it breaks that movie. Clear plotting is also highlighted, because of examples like mentioning Sifo Diyas, which doesn’t really add anything. Similarly, this leaves room for things like simplifying Palpatine’s plan with regard to the Trade Federation.

THE SAGA AS A WHOLE SHOULD BE AS INTERNALLY CONSISTENT AND CLEARLY PLOTTED AS POSSIBLE
This is the meat of the project, but it comes after the individual movies’ quality because we shouldn’t damage a movie to fix the whole - we should seek fixes which at worst are neutral to an individual movie. This item puts fixing contradictions first, and also encompasses clear plotting, which leaves room for (reasonable) streamlining throughout. What this item also suggests, which other edits have done little of, is ADDING extra connective tissue. I already love the idea of fleeing Star Destroyers after ROTJ. I also think, under this item, that we should also at least consider musical/SFX consistency throughout.

THE SAGA AS A WHOLE SHOULD RESPECT THE CANON OF THE TV SERIES AS FAR AS REASONABLE
This comes after the (movie) saga’s internal consistency. I use ‘reasonable’ rather than ‘possible’ because here the limitation isn’t what we can achieve, but what consensus we reach. We shouldn’t bend over backwards to adhere to any TV series, but should try to avoid explicitly introducing contradictions. Implied by this item is also that degree of futureproofing that being broadly aligned with the existing canon brings.

THE SAGA AS A WHOLE SHOULD BE AS ENJOYABLE AS POSSIBLE
Only last because it should come naturally as a direct result of the above. Plus, this is Star Wars, it’s already an enjoyable saga or we wouldn’t be here.

One thing I don’t think we need to overthink is whether or not to include anthology movies. Mainly because Rogue One really doesn’t break anything, nor is Solo likely to, now that the Story Group has a good handle on things. I doubt this project will make any demands of either. As I suggested earlier, once we have our goals we should be able to rank existing edits or original versions against them, and we may likely find that we’re closer than we think. In the ideal world we don’t create new edits from scratch, we just tweak our best existing sources to make them CONPoV compliant.