zombie84 said:

You're wrong because you're using the terminology incorrectly. You can't have things added to the film that never existed and could not have existed and still call it a restoration. It's a Special Edition, or an enhanced edition, or whatever.

Well, yes, I did use the terminology incorrectly at times. But I was kind of always posing the question, what is a restoration? Does it have a definition? What do members of the community consider a "restoration" to be?

I've got some answers and I think all of them are interesting and worth investigating.

However I never once suggested anything needed to be added to the film at all. I only ever advocated using elements that existed and were available and that ended up in the release-cut of the film. Some say that only the final version of the film with all the effects elements baked into it should be cleaned up. I say, if you got as many separate elements as you could and reassembled the film you could do a far better job restoring the film to a pristine state.

The definition of a term isn't always an exact one.