For me, Endor 3PO is probably as good as it's likely to get...
Vac-Metalization is sort of delicate and chips easily, so I'll never expect them to go balls out on a super articulated (or near) 3PO with vac-metal. So I guess Endor throne 3PO is likely to be the winner on my shelf for a long time unless they figure something else out.
That 3PO above looks good, but like Jeff said, the final figure isn't going to look that good probably.
I'm a little more forgiving on 3PO figures since they do nothing but sit, and Hasbro's mastered that, but sure I'd love a SA one that was shiney. Not likely to ever happen though.
I will say, they got the foot painted gold on that figure above though, and that's something almost every 3PO figure didn't have, even if they remembered to paint his right shin silver (they usually just left the right foot silver too then). That's a cool little detail they caught.