The quality of laserdisc captures depends heavily on the LD player used for playback. Unlike DVD players, which can be difficult for people to tell apart, the quality of LD players varies widely.

I believe TR47 used a CLD-79, which is a pretty nice deck. That certainly helps push the quality of his rips to the top.

What we really need is someone with one of the higher-end Japanese LD players, such as the LD-S9 or HLD-X9, to rip the LDs. The Japanese models were noticeably superior to the models released in North America and provide the best image quality.

As for the LDs versus the bootlegs, when you're dealing with analog sources (video on laserdiscs is analog, not digital as many assume), transferring the source to a digital format is bound to introduce some artifacts. Especially on consumer equipment.

If you can afford a nicer LD player like a CLD-79, CLD-97, CLD-99, CLD-704, or one of the Japanese imports, then watching the Faces LDs themselves will provide the best experience. The boots are a decent substitute though.