Simple. As soon as it became evident that the 97 "Special Editions" were no longer that (that being what we assumed a little something done for the 20 year anniversary), and in George's mind now the definitive editions, making the original theatrical releases obsolete, I became a purist.
As far as I'm concerned, let a director release a zillion versions of their movies. But don't ever sit there and say this new version replaces the original film.
Granted there are examples of later cuts being a better, i.e. Alexander. Took 3 goes, but Oliver Stone fixed that failure as much as he could in the final cut. The theatrical and director's cuts were awful.
However, you don't see Oliver on a war path to stop the first two vrsions from being purchased or screened.