I think preservation can only happen if you get the companies onboard. If it's always "us versus them" then a lot of the lore and development history will be lost forever. We're lucky to even have map sources for Quake, but there's tons of first-class work that went into games which has been lost because nobody preserved it or actively destroyed it.

scaleworm said something on the previous page which caught my attention. A lending library is a good idea because it lets people use modern media - but I think that what's just as important is to have things preserved. If something isn't preserved at all, not even a few people can access it.