Haven't read all posts, but most pros and cons have already been covered I guess. Being highly uninterested in owning the "proper" edition of a release, I lack everything needed to become a collector (especially the economy). As long as I own one copy of an official release, I'm fine. Re-releasing long since OOP material, be it a GREY WOLVES tape or some obscure psych rock album is always a good thing, as long as it's done according to the original creator's wishes (that is, not corrupting the original work completely, which a lot of re-issues do, especially in the traditional rock genre; my copy of Black Sabbath's TYR album released by the Classic Rock magazine is atrocious).
One post that caught my mind was Mikko's mentioning of reissues as often being
documents of a work rather than the work itself (though theoretically the physical release might in itself be considered a document of a musical performance), which is true for most re-issues of classic prog rock for example, with extensive archive material (news clippings, never before seen photos), extensive liner-notes by witty music journalists (if you're lucky, by someone in the band), and worst of all, a long row of alternate takes and live tracks. Of course, it's hit and miss; some of it might be very interesting (b-sides and unreleased songs for example), but how many versions of Angel Dust do you need, when all you want is the proper Black Metal album? What I dislike the most is when the original liner-notes & artwork isn't featured at all. Not that a gatefold compressed into a cd booklet spread gives away much; rather do a completely new layout, with the original information still present. Too bad that a lot of these 70's reissues (besides perhaps the first cd prints from the late 80's which didn't have this archive/document mindset yet) are done in "classics series" with the same bland layout for all the albums reissued, even by different bands. Most of all when the booklet contains information about other releases in the series (Charly reissues of Magma albums come to mind... awful, especially since they are known rip-offs that won't pay the musicians a dime in royalties).
Fortunately, noise & industrial seems to generally have much better taste. IR is a good example, as is the Hospital reissue of Grey Wolves, of a more archival mindset - the original crude tape layout preserved. Either that, or a completely new envisioning of the original work (in cooperation with the artist, preferably).
The latter might be more interesting from an artistic point of view. Soundwise I don't really care, as long as it's somewhat close to the original. If there is a change in format, the sound will be different either way. I'd get as much out of a King Crimson album on a second hand tape as this monster:
http://www.discogs.com/King-Crimson-In-The-Court-Of-The-Crimson-King-An-Observation-By-King-Crimson/release/1967769
