And Gaffer Tape, I get what you're saying about Tolkien and the hobbit, but that was not an intentional squandering of the old version. It just happens when a book is revised. The new version is put out, and they have no reason to keep publishing the old version. It's so much harder to do that with books, because if someone went to the bookstore looking for the hobbit and saw two versions labeled "original" and "Revised" they'd be confused as hell. Films are different. And you can find the original version of the hobbit. I'm not for editing and re-editing fiction books, as you so elequently put it. Tolkien only made that one major edit, and I'm not saying I'm all for authors dicking with they're books all the time. Tokien just changed that one bit, once, and he didn't force it on the fans. People who already bought the book weren't going to run out and buy the new printing, and it was the publishers that stopped printing the old version. You've got a very convincing arguement, but I think these two types of fiction and editing just can't be compared. In the end, everyone can have thier own opinion and it really doesn't matter what those opinions are. To each his own.
Plus, Tolkien didn't say "this is how it always was, the old version was just half written."