I think I will probably not include 'close the blast doors' in an alternate track. Since it would not be a strict preservation but rather a composite of the parts I like best about various versions, it wouldn't make much sense to put in something that would annoy me when I watched it myself. ;)
Some of the other dialogue changes are interesting, but the alternate stormtrooper dubbing sounds nothing like the rest of them, and I don't care for those at all. The tractor beam line doesn't bug me because I grew up with the '85 version.
What the mono version improves over the others are the sound effects and a more polished sense of continuity. As an example, the fact that the comm system starts beeping almost immediately when Luke, Han and Chewie are blasting out the security cameras in the detention block—if you listen closely you can hear that it is there during almost the entire firefight, while in the others it doesn't start until after the shooting has stopped. They also moved the stormtrooper line "How long have you had these droids?" about a second earlier, giving the impression that Luke has to think for a moment before replying; in the others the lines are much closer together. Little things like that show how much effort they put into that version, but unfortunately most of those nuances would be very difficult to replicate given what I'm working with. I would simply try to include some of the more obvious sound effects but leave the rest of it the same as the 70mm.
Haven't made as much progress as I'd have liked the past two days, because I've been trying without any success to make the opening flyby work as I wanted it to. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to remove the added sounds while retaining the proper dynamics. The EQ of the two sources is just too different to get them to blend, and the switch is instantly obvious no matter what I do. So it looks like I'll probably have to do it the same way I did before, which is to use the less dynamic track for the whole thing. Someone like Belbucus might be able to pull it off, but I'm not nearly that skilled. Although, maybe I should try to get in touch with him before giving up on it completely . . .
@TServo2049: I'm honestly not hearing the echo you speak of during the Death Star explosion. I didn't do anything to that part other than add bass from the 1997 mix, which is in its own separate channel and should not interfere with the mains. If there is something there I'm not noticing, it's either in the source track or is some kind of artefact from the upmixing. But I'm just confused about what you mean by this, because it doesn't seem to be showing up on my end.