I would not call the situation hopeless. The OOT, or at least Star Wars, will be released at some point in better quality--simply because the world will not let it. The world won't forget it and it will keep lobbying to get it--just like if the original version of King Kong was unavailable. And, as was pointed out, it would be a fantastic business move as buying power. I think as more time goes on Lucasfilm decison-makers will be realising that more and more people will buy and want to buy the OOT than they thought, or that Lucas tells them he thinks, and will be realising more and more that not releasing it will be shooting themselves in the foot from the standpoint of PR, business and reputation. The only question right now is how long will it take for this to happen and how good will the quality be; some people could swallow purchasing a Laserdisk master in 2006, but by the 2010's standard-def--and sub-par standard-def for that matter--will no longer be the common format, and so an HD-version of it would be needed to sell, which would necessitate some kind of newer telecine.