People obviously didn't know until the figure showed up or read the articles posted.
But to this point:
But didn't he get shot? Seemed obvious it wasn't 4-LOM I thought.
That's wrong: Threepio was shot in Empire, reassembled. Artoo was shot by Vader in his TIE and by a Stormtrooper on Endor, fully restored... so people can assume that 4-LOM was that droid (even though he had a bandolier and pistols in that scene) even though he was shot.
Nope just seldomly agree with you Steve
Wow! Well, for future reference you don't have to reply to my posts. It'll save you the angst. As the Sandtrooper said, "Move along, move along!"