I certainly wouldn't wish any ill on GL or any member of his family. Of course it's frustrating and baffling to see him steer the OT in the cartoonish direction of the prequels but to equate the ruination of these films to personal tragedies such as cancer, rape etc. is unnecessarily hyperbolic and unconstructive. I used to frequent a popular UK film magazine forum in the past but the whole 'GL raped my childhood' shit just distanced me from these idiots and as a result (not the only reason but it didn't help) I stopped posting on there. If you don't like the prequels, guess what? You don't have to watch them. I own the bloody things and I can't foresee myself watching them any time soon.
It's sad to see Lucas incrementally destroy the OT as the years tick by. It's even sadder that I have subsequently viewed almost everything GL has said regarding the 'non-existence' of unaltered prints as utter lies, but that's the way I feel.
We can talk and talk until we're blue in the face about our theories about why Lucas feels the need to constantly piss about with the OT, but I honestly doubt we'll ever see the unaltered films in any HD format. As countless posters have said before me, is it so much to ask?
Having not seen any of the fan preservations yet (my pathetic PC set-up prevents me from downloading anything worthwhile) it would seem these efforts will be the closest anyone can hope for in replicating our beloved memories of first seeing these movies.
Anyway, I'm not expecting a massive cave-in from Lucas anytime soon. While I admire the steadfast refusal of so many to line his pockets yet again by not purchasing the BD set, there are a great many Star Wars 'fans' who, perplexingly, seem to resent the general opinion on here and will immediately rush out and buy the damn thing just so they have 'Star Wars on Blu Ray', regardless of the many oversights and crass additions and revisions the films have suffered at the incompetent hands of both Lucas and his army of jobsworths at Lucasfilm.
It truly is a dark time for the rebellion...