@WXM:
Thanks for the detailed reply. As I have said before: Even I sometimes struggle with the stretch (the planets especially). But I will continue - perhaps at some point a better solution will come along and I’d happily adapt to it.

Still, after having watched the 1080p masters I wondered about several points you noticed as well:

I certainly understand that the original film stock had/has more grain and - don’t get me wrong here - I do appreciate keeping grain to avoid a waxy look, but in this case they saved too much of it
Why did they use such a “coolder/darker” color palette? I get things looking overly bright and sometimes even greyish (looking at the Star Trek DVDs here), but here I think it does not flatter certain elements (like fine details or already darker uniform colors)
And finally: What’s up with the saturation? Some shots look like they went a bit overboard.

In any event, I will keep going forward. It’s kinda exciting.