After reading your post Weyseed, I understand where you are coming from, and at times I get a bit frustrated and wonder what the hell is going on in the world of the internet. Then I take a step back and realize........it is the internet. The internet to me is like talk radio in the US, it is a place for a good debate, a heated debate, and alot of bitching, and that makes it entertaining, but in the same vein it gets a bit ridiculous at times.
I think the problem with the SW fanbase and the sniping on the internet stems from the OOT/SE debate, not the PT movies, and that is the big fallacy among fans like us. Sure we debate the PT, sure we talk about what if, and sure we talk about how Lucas dropped the ball that we got so juiced up for in 1999. But the one thing I have noticed is there is no hatred towards Lucas on the PT, there may be frustration of a bad product, and there may even be disgust among many of us about the way they turned out, but for me personaly, I hold no hard feelings towards Sir George when it comes to the PT movies, they are what they are, and it is fun sometimes to speculate how they should have turned out. I'm sure many Matrix fans do that with the sequels, or Jurassic Park fans do the same, it is the nature of sequels that turn out average, you speculate how it could be better.
What the real problem with the SW fans on the internet and the frustration with Lucas stems from the OOT and how it is treated these days. I will say it and say it again, if Lucas never touched the OT movies and there were 6 SW movies sitting out there: 3 OT & 3 PT, I would not even be here posting right now. I would have the trilogy I love in my collection in great quality, and the trilogy I think is sorta entertaining because it is SW, case closed.
But why are we all here? This site isn't called, "PT sucks.com" or "Prove the OT is better then the PT.com", it is called, "originaltrilogy.com." And every other debate that happens stems from the problem of not having the OOT in any good form on DVD and respect circa 2006. I log on here everyday in hopes that one day I will see, "Lucas plans to restore the OOT in the 30th Anniversary Boxset!" Let the celebration begin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But what happens is I log on here, and nothing, another day of disrespect for the greatest trilogy of all-time. And then I see people like Gomer tell me, 'This is the best quality the OOT has ever been." Yeah, it would be like myself having a 1995 Ford Probe, and then trading that in for a 1996 Ford Probe and saying, "This is the best car I have ever driven!!!!"
If Lucas would have never changed the OT movies, SW debates would be so different and there would be no huge divide like there is now. There would have been some divide over the Prequels, but that debate has shifted to OOT fans vs SE/PT fans, so now it is even greater! The OOT fans have taken the side that the PT sucks, and the PT fans have taken the side that the SE are great, and justify that the PT is just as great.
The day the OOT is remastered to great quality, I won't post here anymore, cause my job as a SW fan on the internet is over. As Weyseed said, there are more important things going on in the world, and in the grand scheme of the Iraq War and world hunger, the OOT is really irrelevant. But this is entertainment, and we all need to unwind from our daily life and just talk about something that is really trivial to the grand problems of the world.
So in the context of a vice in our life, this is a war, a war to keep these movies alive, cause no generation after us will even care. The reason it is still talked about and debated is because there are so many of us, and Lucas knows the biggest fanbase he ever had was the OOT fans, and as much as he only wants the saga to be of the 6 movie verisons that he see as his vision 'du jour' in 2006, 2007, 2008, etc, he knows that he is going to have to remaster the OOT somewhere down the line, via the 30th anniversary Boxset, Blue Ray HD-DVD, cause we are not going away. Or atleast I know I am not.