I think you'll probably have a much easier time of it working on the PT in a few years, Adywan, not the actual workload, but the fan reactions. It must be pretty conscricting to work on the OT, since any single little change you make will have a huge backlash from fans. Like that hullabuloo over the killing Lando thing, a lot of fans (including me, unfortunately) simply can't fathom the idea of actually changing the OT's story. I mean, I know it would proably be a lot better as a trilogy with a few story changes, but I'm way too engrained in it, I wouldn't be able to accept it the same as I would for any other fanedit. I mean, I know ROTJ has the weakest story of the three, and I know it's the weakest film of the three, and it is quite flawed in general, but I still love it regardless, it was my favourite as a kid (which was probably the point, Ewoks and dumb jokes and all that), so even trying to improve it plotwise, I can't really fathom.
So it must be really hard to deal with all the naysayers (like I said I didn't want to see the story changed, but I never actually said anything about it, that would be rude and ungrateful, it's still your edits, and you're doing these out of your own pocket after all).
The PT on the other hand, I, and most likely the majority of fans, couldn't give a toss about the original story/characters, so you can do whatever you like to them without all that backlash. In fact, I think it's clear you'll only be encouraged to slice it up and make something worthwhile out of it. Of course, it'll probably take a lot of work to tone down the flashiness of the trilogy, and reworking scripts, characters, music and plots won't be easy, but at least you'll have total creative freedom with them, which will surely be a relief. Sort of like you're given a blueprint, that you can modify however you see fit before building the house, and people will be pleased no matter what, so hated the original blueprint was. Thogh this is sort of off topic, and years away as it is.
P.S. Sorry to hear about the back problems, my dad has serious back problems so I know how crippling they can be for someone.