There are very few things that make me cringe in Revisited and this change is one of them:

I've never understood the purpose of this change for a couple of reasons:

1. There wasn't really anything wrong with the original that broke the suspension of disbelief or hurt the drama of the scene. Seeing a small vehicle in the horizon of which we can't make out the details brings a sense of wonder and imagination. This is one of the shots I most remember from the OT and one of my favorites as a kid.

2. I'm not sure what Ady used as the source for the new sand crawler. I know he said the only CG he used was of the TIEs, but this shot looks like CG. It's not convincing at all.

3. A first time watcher is not supposed to clearly make out what sort of transport C3PO is signaling. We are supposed to wonder how C3PO and R2 are going to reunite. We can already clearly see R2 being picked up in a Sand Crawler and if we know C3PO is signaling a similar ship, we can deduce C3PO and R2 are both on the same Sand Crawler, which hurts the drama.