Upon reading some of the comments on Benjin's stories, I responded, then decided to summarize here.
You folks have some good and interesting thoughts. Here are some of mine:
Early on, one of my editors and I set out to proofread Benjin's stories. As you said, there are both typos and 'expressions' that come from his native German. We got through one and half of another, and I decided it wouldn't work without Benjin participating. A BIG reason was the temptation to edit as well as proof, and the 'flavor' changed. Another was that there would be two versions of the same story on different sites. I didn't even keep the two stories in my own files.
On the other items, you have to remember that these are stories that were written very early in the Cycle. Other authors, including me, have expanded on such ideas. One reason we are so protective of 'canon' is to let us poke at ideas without treading on each other. I think it works pretty well. Above all, I wanted to 'port Benjin's stories to show the origin of some of the basic ideas/tenants of the Cycle. Benjin laid a LOT of the foundation.
If we could get permission, I'd be more than happy to 'port other stories from ASSTR, but we do need to consider copyrights.
Omachuck