I only speak for myself when I say I appreciate the way Lucas is tweaking and to me he is improving them. For me it's not about the special effects as much as it's about the story. To me what he's done not only hasn't harmed the original films, it's actually made them better. He said that if he didn't do the restoration when he did, there would never have been -any- Star Wars. What you call "destroying the original print" I call saving it's life. To me it's not all that big of a deal if Lucas wants to make Greedo shoot first, or if he wants to put Hayden in as the ghost in ROTJ. To me, it still represents the same thing: The good man who was Luke's father.
Again, cutting up the negative, and replace large parts of it with newly created material made 20 years later is NO preservation, it is the destruction of the original. He could have done the same restauration without this butchering. You can´t save something by throwing it away and replacing it with something different.
EVERY film restauration expert and movie fan will shake his / her head about your comment you just made. Ever heard of euphemism?
Acoording to your logic, burning the whole negative and remaking EPIV-VI with the same story, but totally different actors would be no problem, since essentially, it still would represent the same thing. Well, I personally think of Hayden´s character and acting performance in the PT when I watch GL newly revised "artistic vision" (tm). Too bad I´m actually paying too much attention to the performance and actors of films, even if they are being replaced suddenly with every new film release, instead of just going with the story...
You are clearly no film preservationist. And this is an understatement. You are clearly the ANTI-FILM-PRESERVATIONIST.