Funny, I don’t recall ever defending the '97 SE.
It’s no less worthy of being preserved than anything else with the Star Wars brand on it though.
If someone likes the '97 SE, then I would defend their right to preserve it just as I do the originals. And George absolutely had a right to make a Director’s Cut and release his “true version”, whatever that was.
But he had no right to try and quash the OOT because of his own insecurities as a man and as a filmmaker.