danny_boy said:

Kubrik gets away with it because hardly anyone remembers what those sacred 19 minutes were(although it is documented on wikipedia/IMBD) but Lucas does not because everyone has seen his film way too many times(me included).

Kubrick also gets away with it because the edited version is just about as good as the opening day version. If he'd added a few wiggly dinosaurs on the moon, or had Hal be the first one to get locked outside the pod bay door, or similar inanities, it's quite possible 2001 would not be considered a classic today. Similarly, if George had made his 1997 edits twenty years earlier, there might not have been enough studio interest to even make Empire. You never know.

But yeah, in principle, the movie, as released on opening day, should always be available as an option. But you also can't ignore the obvious--people aren't so attached to the originals only because they saw them so many times--they saw them so many times only because they loved them so much. Had the Special Editions been as good as the originals, the outrage over George's alterations could easily have been about the same as the dust-up over 2001.

You simply can't pretend the quality of the editing doesn't matter.