To me, it's all about the journey and not so much about the end product, although it's nice to reach the end. Can't multiple people do the encode in 10 minute chunks? Then agree on the best way to encode it so that one person can take all of the files and do one final splice together.

On a side note, I know we are all waiting and hoping for a perfect restoration of the original trilogy. If we ever actually got it, the whole point of this site would sort of go away. No more journey. Although again, it would be nice to finally get it someday.