Quite honestly I'm not sure why having the older stereo track would be needed at this point, since everything I haven't tweaked is exactly the same as before; and all the parts I did change still sound very similar, just with improved sound quality and correction of my previous mistakes. The new version does not really present a significant creative difference so much as an upgrade in the technical sense. It sounds more like the real 70mm mix, and is therefore more 'authentic'. But I guess some folks will always want to have everything ever put out for the sake of a complete archive, of course.
Unfortunately, I realized yesterday that I'd messed up some things on the LFE channel, so I have to go back and redo them. Accordingly, I've decided that rather than trying to recreate my earlier work on the parts that sounded correct already, I'll simply port them over from the previous version, and only make any edits on the parts where I didn't properly simulate the theatrical sound, in order to reduce the possibility of any further mistakes. This means that the bass from the Bluray will not be used at all, but since it would have only shown up in a few places, the benefit of lossless would have been minimal anyway. I haven't ruled out using the Bluray LFE for the other two films when I get to them, though.
Almost forgot to mention it, but I combined the stereo track with Harmy's latest workprint (partially because I was tired of listening to the mono mix, lol) and found that the synch error I mentioned earlier is small enough not to be noticed, so it turns out there's nothing to worry about on that account.
Hopefully, it won't be more than another week or so until I'm done with this. In the meantime, here's another comparison file between the 70mm and the 2004 mix, in which I highlighted some of the worst-sounding parts of the latter in order to show just how drastic the degradation really is. (I made this for a friend who is looking forward to seeing original version of the movie again for the first time in many years.) Be sure to note the huge swell of static and distortion when the Death Star explodes; that's always good for a laugh.