I actually thought the added music in ANH:R was one of the worst elements. It doesn't fit at all. The music is neither stylistically the same as the score for A New Hope, and the scenes where it was added never needed underscoring. Adywan bemoans the travesties that were the special editions and DVD editions, but then he goes and commits some of the same "crimes" that Lucas is accused of. Don't get me wrong, Adywan has made some truly wonderful tweaks, but also loads of mistakes. He seeks to correct every tiny doscontinuity, regardless of whether it actually made any difference to the movie. Like the recolouring of R2 to red because of the positioning of the unit when the camera tracks right as they approach docking bay 94. It's just totally unnecessary. And while new sequences are technically excellent, many of them are totally undermined by a lack of spatial awareness within the frame. The big Tie reveal is an obvious example. Yes, they have been rendered really well, but the frame is crammed with them all over the place and not in a good way. The positioning of them is haphazard and uneven to the eye - not in a chaotic dogfight way, I mean the way they are framed. The electricity on the torture droid needle in Leia's cell is another example of overkill. And the scene in Ben's house no longer flows properly with the reordered shots. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that scene in the first place.
Again, the rendering of the new CG shots is really impressive, but the other "new" shots are just elements taken from other FX shots in the trilogy composited together with the occasional new element. The Death Star reveal is a prime example. The first shot of the Star Destroyer is just taken from Empire and flipped horizontally. It's obvious to anyone who knows these films. And the second or third shot where the background Star Destroyers disappear behind the Death Star when they would still be in front at that size highlights Adywan's failure to understand the scale. Add in a badly drawn planet and you've got what? 10 for effort, but really, all this praise being heaped on Adywan is a little, well, fanboyish.
As for the general trend of edits, I totally agree with your comments about the "darker" and "grittier" spin, though. And there is way, way too much back slapping by the fan editors. They all take far too much credit for the "work" they've done.