I enjoy a good SE bash as much as the next guy, but I'm not sure I entirely agree that they weren't needed whatsoever. The concept of a special edition which fixes poor visual effects (really dark matte lines, translucent snowspeeders, projector-screen-rancor, miscoloured ANH lightsabres) is good, IMO, provided you don't proceed to then wipe away the original from the pages of film history.

The real problem is that GL went overboard. Rather than touching up the films, he ended up tampering with them. Claymation Jabba, Greedo shooting first, Fraggle Rock characters in Jabba's palace, and a big ol' frikkin' beak on the Sarlaac pit are all examples of change for the sake of change that just stretches credutilty to the breaking point. What's really sad is that a lot of these over-the-top changes were done while lots of a subtle things that really would've helped the films were completely ignored. (Snowspeeders are still translucent. Luke's lightsabre is still sickly green. Et cetera and so forth.)

Honestly, I don't mind the celebration scene so much (although the Kenny G music does irk me; gimme "Yub, yub!" any day.) I even rather enjoy the new sky shots in cloud city. The key is subtlety. The silly CGI antics performed by Jawas and droids as Luke & Co. enter Mos Eisely just scream, "Look at me! Look at me! I'm a new addition! Isn't this great?!?!"

Sooo, all that to say, the concept of an improved OT has potential; the egregious failure was in the execution. That's why, to me, the SEs will forever be apocryphal, and Adywan's revisited series (once it's finished) I will consider canon.