deepanddark20 said:

I thought the idea behind their project was that the GOUT, even for all its flaws, is the best version of the unaltered trilogy that has thus far been officially released, but some comments made in this discussion are making me think otherwise

Here's the thing: If you consider MPEG-2 artifacts and halved chroma resolution to be negligible*, then the GOUT is demonstrably better than the DefCol/Faces LDs since it was derived from the D-1 master used to create said LDs.

With that being said, the crux of this debate is the DVNR. Many—myself included—consider the JSC to look better than the DefCol/Faces/GOUT since it resolves a hell of a lot better in motion, doesn't have DVNR artifacts (e.g. four-eyed stormtroopers), and has much better colors overall.

On the flip-side, the JSC shows much more dirt and film damage, has wonky breaks in 3:2-pulldown cadence, and doesn't resolve as well as the DefCol/Faces/GOUT in still and low motion shots. Plus, you need good equipment to get good results.

This whole thing reduces to "pick your poison" and many choose to take the Harmy antidote instead. That's cool.

(* MPEG-2 YV12 simply isn't enough given the source.)