zombie84 said:

The decision to re-do the FX in 1993 was not his idea. It was Dennis Muren who pressed it on him. Lucas just wanted to add the Jabba scene, an addition which he attempted to do for the 1981 modification which had the new crawl. He might have wanted to also add a few BG elements to Mos Eisley, but this is not totally clear. So, he never had the idea of doing large-scale FX changes until Dennis Muren and then other ILM staff started suggesting it. He then surmised it would be good R&D for the prequels, and so he started thinking up changes that would have relevant research qualities (i.e. crowd replication, BG replacement, CG close to camera).

It was a slippery slope and once he started he realized how much he liked it. But he was really just interested in sprucing up Mos Eisley and adding the deleted Jabba scene. If it was 1981 and he could have done whatever he wanted, evidence suggests this is all he would have done. I prefer the non-Jabba edit, just as I prefer the original crawl, but I would have let him get away with it for consistency/relevance the same as the 1981 crawl; not a big deal. I think most people would feel similar.

To be fair to Muren from what I read at the time and in the years since, he saw it as exciting and something worth pushing because in his eyes they were working on a "Special Edition". Something fun and different for the times, but an edition nonetheless. In his eyes the original releases would always be the "real" movies.

I don't think he ever thought George would make a decision to refer to this "special edition" as "the" edition moving forwards, thereby trying to erase the past.