SilverWook said:

Were the SE's rushed a bit to make the release date? Restoration aside, there were enough new shots across the OT to be equivalent to doing a entire new movie.

There must have been some pre-production work ongoing for TPM at the same time.

I believe the Jabba sequence took them about a year to do. I wouldn't think that be considered rushed considering how short the scene is, but maybe in 94 or 95 it was. I'm not sure about the other updated effects shots. They had to restore and "improve" three feature films for release in early 1997, so I wouldn't be surprised if some aspects were rushed, which they seemingly were since some of the original updated effects were redone for the 2004 DVDs. Or that could be a simple case of tinkering. :-)