Janskeet said:
In the OT they had model and physical gag artists working on the movie. These people were seasoned artists who had a mature eduacation on what looks good on film. They were pasionate about the films.

Uh, no they weren't. They were a bunch of college students who had never worked on a movie before. Everything they did was by the seat of their pants. There is absolutely no evidence to support that they knew what they were doing from the get go. As a matter of fact, according to the old interviews with Lucas, he had to fire his original FX crew because they had no shots completed when he got back from Europe. He then had to oversee everything that was done from that point.

These guys were all a bunch of green kids that really had no idea what they were getting into. All they did know is that they were working on a Sci-Fi movie.

I agree with everything else you had to say though.