NeverarGreat said:
I have a new theory about the folks at Lucasfilm that colortimed the 2004/2011 master. They were trying to save the originals by making the SE so bad that people would rise up and demand justice. Think about it. It's actually quite difficult to accidentally crush blacks and blow out whites on professional color correction systems (especially correcting with scopes), so they had to know what they were doing. Having gotten away with it on Star Wars, they went crazy with Empire. "Surely people won't stand for this and demand refunds" they said. "Surely they will demand a proper restoration after this" they said.
Nope.
The colorist of the 2004 master talks about it in this podcast...
http://www.fxguide.com/thevfxshow/the-vfx-show-133-star-wars-blu-ray-release/
...and he doesn't seem to think he did a bad job at all. In fact, most of the time, they discuss about how great this BD release is.
Although, I think your theory might be right in some aspects. We have countless examples, but what stands out the most for me is the fact that all of the 2011 changes are so bad and lazily made that I can't believe they were done by professionals.
EDIT: This is shocking! Read all the posts from Vidiot (pages 5-7):