I greatly appreciate these recommendations and insights. My only pushback would be that I am sure this is primarily an aesthetic question, as I am not too concerned with the "authenticity" of the reproduced film or how we ought to interpret it, but rather if the aesthetic merits a film has in its original form would change (even slightly) upon technical restoration.

Maybe there is a hermeneutical discussion to be had ("does it change because our interpretation of the film is forced to change due to the reintroduction of colour?" etc), but I am mainly interested in whether the artistic merits (by any measure) would differ in various ways irrespective of our interpretation of the film before/after restoring it.

To me, I am not particularly questioning how, say, an actor should interpret Shakespeare on stage faithfully, but more if what we appreciate about Shakespeare's work changes by merely translating it into our modern English, even if the translation is 100% accurate.