Just out of curiosity, do you recall off hand what matte paintings or model work was erased? I thought I was pretty familiar with the Special Edition changes, but I can’t recall off hand any actual models or matte paintings that were erased.
Actually, both of the examples you mentioned were replaced for the SE. The new mattes do look better from an objective point of view, but the original work has still been erased.
This is way off topic now, but Channel72 proves his point. Eventually only a dozen people on here will remember anything was changed.