But the OT is so powerful, the majority of people will 'put up' with the SE just to have them on DVD
Some people might but I think the majority of people (ie, Joe Sixpack) would not care which version they get.
Even so, given George's comments on the matter, I wouldn't by any means rule out an eventual real release of the trilogy. When? Your guess is as good as anybody's. If it were coming this year (a stupid choice with the 30th being last year and Indy 4 this year), we would've heard by now, I'd imagine.
As for HD, I can only see a Blu-Ray SE release happening in the next two years if the OOT is included. Lucas, rather obviously, doesn't have faith in the format so I'd imagine he'd want to package in the OOT as "extras" again to make the Blu-Ray thing a killer-app.
If the release happens beyond that window, when Blu-Ray's more established (and until Joe Sixpack has one, it's just a niche), which I estimate to be about two years away, then there'd be no incentive to include the OOT to spike up sales since the format would then be the growing market standard. Sales are assured anyway, right, so why bother?
Incidentally, George's remark about "it'll all come out in the end" was about learning whether people prefer the SE vs. the OOT. Ergo what I think he meant was "the truth will come out". I'd love to be wrong though.