Mike to the rescue...
I was really interested in hearing your take on this, and it really mirrors my sentiment. I'm really hesitant to go "fuck preservation, make it look great!", as after all that's the point of Harmy's work. On the other hand the whole thing already looks much better/cleaner/sharper than probably a lot of theatrical prints looked back then, so I guess a jarring error like this is negligible preservation-wise.