I hate to point it out, but this set is timed to coincide with the release of a new line of toys and the Lego Star Wars 2 video game. They have product to sell, so they bang out a shoddy release with no supplemental features and (possibly) sub-standard transfers. I'm confused by Ward's "state of the art in '93' comments, as they went back to the original negatives and cleaned them up in '97 before messing around with them. Surely they must have those unaltered versions available?

It'll be nice to have them, but I'm not anticipating a high quality release. They didn't do this for the fans or because of a petition, they did it because they wanted to squeeze more cash out of a franchise that has effectively run its course. I did find this interesting though:

This new set of DVDs does not constitute "George changing his mind," says Lucasfilm's Jim Ward. "What we've always said is George viewed the revised versions of the films as the definitive versions."

Strange, I must have imagined all the quotes where Lucas said the 'original' versions no longer exist...