It just seems to me that it would be a HUGE mistake to leave in these garbage mats. We are all purists here, but sometimes common sense has to temper the purist mentality. It's hard to explain, but fixing these mats is just not the same as cleaning up the landspeader blur, enhancing weak rotoscoping etc. Is there a single person who finds the garbage mats endearing? I plead with you to make an exception for the garbage mats. They suck, they suck, they suck. Please for the love of God make an exception for the garbage mats.

preservation has nothing to do with Lucas' 'original vision' it has to do what he originally showed

He has never shown a version of these films without dust dirt and other crap on the film itself. The reason that there are dust specs on the filmstock is due to the fact that the technology to prevent this from happening didn't exist (it still doesn't). We can all look at this common sense wise, however, and decide that they should of course be fixed. How can the same not be true for the garbage mats?