generalfrevious said:

I wonder... Has the relative unavailability of the OOT made its stature bigger than it otherwise would have been?

Wishful thinking. The Star Wars franchise has been sunk so far in schlocky fourth-rate sci-fantasy for so long that only a very few remember, or care, that it was ever anything else. Add to this the fact that the sci-fi/fantasy media markets have flourished enough in the meantime to have a wide range of excellent-quality work from other creators for people to choose from, and, well, there you have it. The rest of the world has moved on to better things. The OOT is the only reason Star Wars is still culturally relevant at all, sure, but that's hardly the same thing as saying its long absence has been beneficial to its stature.