You DO realize, of course, that when these folks zoom in on the letterboxed picture on their widescreen TVs, it will be upscaled vertically AND horizontally. This will bring the edges to the sides of the screen, AND cut off a portion of the black bars at the top and bottom. (Hence the comment about cropping the pics not being a problem, not that you were paying attention to this.)
If it were only upscaled on one axis, then you would ruin the aspect ratio - though I'm sure that if Lucas released them in such a way, you'd find a way to explain why this was a good thing.
Anyone got that pic that Neil S. Bulk had in his .sig, showing the black bars encircling the 4x3 SW video frame on all sides when displayed in its "native resolution" on a widescreen TV? I think our little friend needs a visual aide.