Steven,
I'm not sure about excluding the publisher, it's true that the same album is released by different publishers in different countries but often they've different track lists in terms of order and/or tracks (e.g. extra tracks, replaced tracks etc.).
I agree about the oldest release, so that e.g. album reissues will be excluded (personally, I like to tag albums with the original issue year and not the reissue year).
Regards,
Lore