doubleofive, I noticed you got this wrong again:

SW comparison 3: "While the font is the same in all versions, the preface was rendered thinner with wider spacing in 1997 (middle) and yet again in 2004 (bottom)."

correction:
The preface was rendered thinner with wider spacing in 1997 (middle) and yet again in a different font in 2004 (bottom).

I guess they changed the font in the 2004 DVD to match the preface of the prequels, the '97 looks almost identical to the '77 original but if you look closely you can see it's a different rendering, closer in appearance to the sequels, that's why I think they didn't change the preface for Empire and Jedi in '97 but I may be wrong.

1977 original - this wasn't simply reused in '80 and '83, it was slightly differently rendered for every sequel

1997 SE - slightly thinner with different spacing, very close, probably a modern digitized version of the same font

doubleofive, can you check if the preface was slightly different in the '97 Empire and Jedi than in '80 and '83?