I mean if you look at it from Lucas's POV, every SW thing since the SE has been financially successful, so in that respect, why should he feel the OOT has this huge demand? The SE movies made over 240 million in the theaters in 1997, the SE VHS release in 1997 did just as well. TPM, AOTC, and ROTS all made huge money in the theaters, and the DVD's did just as well. The 2004 SE OT DVD's are still one of the highest DVD's ever.
Now I am not debating quality, but Lucas is a businessman looks at those numbers and says, "Is there really this huge market for the OOT? And is it worth it to fuck with my vision of the 'saga' rather then starting to release different versions that will muddle everything up.
I don't know if the OOT will be in the saga boxset nextyear, but I do know this, Lucas the businessman will not change until he gets hit in the wallet. If Lucas puts out the 30th Anniversary Boxset next year without the OOT and just the SE OT, and PT (CG Yoda, etc.) stuff and it doesn't sell well, then he may reconsider. I think he will look at the 2006 OOT numbers, and that is the only reason I bought them, and atleast understand there is this huge market, cause all 3 movies finished in the Top 10 of DVD sales the week they came out, and of course that was in laserdisk quality.