Joel, the changes you mention actually irk me no end, but for the added shots of Vader returning to his Star Destroyer, I kind of all lump of them together in discussion as being the “Hyperspace” scene. Call me a nit-picker, but the breaks in pacing and sloppy music editing totally ruins the climax of the film for me.

I also have to say that while I did like the way the Cloud City interiors looked in the Special Edition, when I saw the original again for the first time in a while, I think many of the shots are better composed in the original version. The splashes of color in the revision are often more distracting than they should be in a compositional sense. If the film had been shot with that color scheme in the first place, the component shots wouldn't have been framed or blocked the way they are in the film.

The more explicit Wampa at the beginning is okay… it definitely makes it a lot clearer what's happening in the cave when Luke wakes up, but as others have pointed out, the disorienting footage of the original has a certain terrifying quality that's a bit lost here.

The 2004 revised dialogue between Vader and the Emperor is another area that feels like nails on the chalkboard to me, because it doesn't make any &#$%ing sense. The film had established in the opening crawl that Vader had been obsessively scouring the galaxy looking for Luke, the idea that Palpatine would “reveal” his probable parentage at this point is silly.

Overall, Empire is the least offensive of the Special Editions, but several of the changes are really annoying, and even the ones that could be argued are improvements don't really bring that much to the film. But as with the other Special Editions, I don't find any of the advantages worth the disadvantages.

My take on it, anyway.