Emulation has certainly been a part of the industry, both in official and unofficial capacities, and the lines between emulation, remasters and remakes can indeed be blurry at times. I'd settle for a simple remaster or rerelease (essentially the same game but with some minor polish/fixes) but of course, we're all secretly hoping for a full blown remake with additional content. That would automatically give it more value than a copy of the old game, emulated or official.

But even if it were just a rerelease, well - for me, personally, it's easy to emulate the game because I have the knowledge and the means to do so. The reason why I and so many others would like an official rerelease is that it would allow a more general audience to try it as well. Most people haven't even heard of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and even if they did, they might not be able or willing to go through unofficial channels to try it out - in some cases, a bit of hacking is required, as you said. The best way to get the game out in the public eye is to have Nintendo make an official rerelease of any kind - not because of my personal loyalty to Nintendo, but because of the people who would be exposed to this game thanks to how easily accessible it'd be, not to mention Nintendo's marketing team with its massive budget drawing further attention to the game. In the end, who better to bring people in to play a Nintendo game than Nintendo itself?

So that's why I still think a rerelease would have value. You raise good points, though; people who truly want to play the game can already do so, but it's all about reaching the people who don't know what the game has to offer yet.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I really appreciate it!