I've got an original Heiland with battery extension tubing, as well as a nice, ultra accurate GRAFLEX from a run here several years ago. Up until now, I've never really though of it much but you guys may be on to something. If they switched the lower GRAFLEX base and possibly clamp assembly from ANH to ESB, that may be why we are getting the "the top half looks like this, but the bottom half looks like this" effect and a difficult time matching what we are seeing to screen used props. I'm tempted to say that the clamp may not be painted at all, but covered in black electrical tape or Gaffer's tape.
(for the 2 of you on the RPF who don't know, you load the Heiland Synchronar batteries through a screw off end cap at the base, but the GRAFLEX splits in the middle under the clamp assembly)
The hollowed out Obi-Wan would make sense for the rod spinning assembly used in ANH. I've never understood how there would be room in the hero saber for a motor (cobbled together as it was from jet enginge parts, a grenade, a Graflex clamp, and a sink knob, and threaded together!)
Yet, we can see the wire going up Alec Guiness ' robe/sleeve during parts of the Vader duel on the Death Star. And since the rods were not lit from within, it must be that he did indeed have a motor assembly in the lower half of his saber, right? Which would mean that Obi-Wan's dueling saber and cantina saber were NOT the hero handles, yes?