Here is how it went as far as i know. In 1993 Lucasfilm began preparations for the 20th anniversary and the first thing they did was go back to the original negative. They were horrified to discover it had deteriorated far beyond anyone's expectation and so an exhaustive restoration was undertook. At the same time, Lucas began speculating about redoing special effects, mostly Mos Eisely and the Death Star. The restored negative was finally handed over to ILM where the CGI additions were put in.
Then in 2003 i believe, Lowry Digital began working on the trilogy. Now, i have come to the conclusion that they were working from the negative of the 1997 special edition. Because if they WERENT, if they had a CLEAN un-SE'd version that would mean that ALL of the 1997 SE changes that remained (in other words, 95%) would have to be RE-COMPISITED exactly as they were into the print. I'm 99% sure this didnt happen. They just took the SE, superficially added a few more things like Hayden, redid the one landspeeder shot when entering Mos Eisley and re-comped Jabba. So the Lowry restored version is the SE.
Now, the ORIGINAL original trilogy, unaltered and as it was (probably with the Episode IV crawl) is preserved and cleaned up from the 1997 SE (in 1993). This is probably why Jim Ward says the picture will be from 1993--this was the last and only time the original prints were restored. And like he says, its not as good as the 2004 Lowry restoration--but it was damn close. I mean, you all remember how great it looked in theatres--a scratch here, some grain there but otherwise nice and clean.
So this is why Jim Ward made those infamous comments. Because if he didnt we would all assume its of the same quality as the 2004 Lowry digital edition and when we discovered it was less pristine we would have seiged Skywalker Ranch in anger. So this is preparring us for a still-great but less-than-perfect transfer. The comment about sourcing Lucasfilm archives is probably in reference to obtaining the original crawl element, as well as possibly even implying that the original cleaned-up 1993/1997 print has been stored in the LFL archives since then, since the 2004 used the final SE print as the starting point.
Thats my opinion. I could be wrong but i have a feeling I'm right. I hope i am anyway! So the worst-case scenario that we will just be getting an LD transfer PROBABLY isn't true. I mean i cant think of any reason why my above-hypothesis shouldnt be the case. All the elements are there nice and clean. Lucasfilm is known for their quality, i think its more likely that they would spend a hundred thousand dollars and scan a new high quality telecine of the original restored 1993 print in their archives rather than transfer the noticably-soft LD rip which even casual consumers would realise is poor quality even for an old movie.