[WillPS]

I need to look back my emails but I actually emailed Challenge a few years ago and actually asked them why episodes are so butchered and got a very lackluster response saying that they got the episodes like that (which I didn't believe for a second).

The editing on them is so bad at times, it's actually quite horrid to watch.

Depends on your understanding of 'they'. The edits were done by VMTV. Sky received those edited assets when they took over the running of Challenge, so 'they' did indeed get the episodes that way.

They could ask ITV for fresh copies I'm sure, but it wouldn't be a cost-free process for them to do that.

Some over-edited series have been replaced by non/less-edited ones, I presume when the rights for those series have been allowed to expire and then been reacquired sometime later?