1) The trilogy gets archived for posterity complete with the problems that the budget and "state of the art" technology at the time had to deal with (i.e. matte lines, glitches, oversights etc.) Future generations can see how one of the most influential films ever looked way back in 1977.
2) Each various version gets archived, and when Bluray/HD-DVD becomes a reality, you could have one disc that contained the various releases PAL/NTSC/Faces/Original Crawl/Mono/Stero/Surround etc.
As for it being different to what Lucas is doing, it is quite different.
Most projects are of an archival nature, so just preserving what is now in existence, and making it more accessible.
Then there are the restoration projects that attempt to get as close to initial run film releases by adjusting the colour and pulling from various sources to try and recreate the original - akin to what art museums do when cleaning and restoring paintings - doing the best you can to bring it back to how it looked originally.
Then there are the personal projects to fix glitches and jarring shots - closer to what Lucas is doing, but still different. i.e. not changing the story or overall look of the film, just fixing technical problems that would not have occured if they had had better equipment/more time etc. That is, getting closer to what they tried to do in 1977.
Then finally there are the re-invention projects, I guess these are more on a par with Lucas - people changing the movies to suit their personal tastes, whether removing something they hate, or re-imagining it as a WW2 movie for their personal pleasure, fun, learning or whatever reason - but even here there is a subtle difference, none of these imagineers are trying to snuff the original work, whatever its flaws, out of existence.
As for legal proceedings, I think LFL is reasonably benign when it comes to fan stuff, as long as it occurs well after the movies in question have had their run, and they have made their money. I appreciate how much Lucas lets the fans do in this regard - almost no other company lets people play with their product in this way.
It is very different to releasing a product on the net that is *about* to be commercially released - that would invite anyone to come gunning for you and is just stoopid.
I'm always aware though that at anytime LFL or more likely FOX could come a gunning and try to make an example out of someone if they suddenly felt inclined that way...