Just my 2 cents, since we had experienced similar discussion last year in Wikimania 2007.
First of all, for the Chinese character, though it did look like the word "ancestor" in Chinese but the shape is in fact a little bit different.
The character on logo is 10 stroke (1) but the character for ancestor is 9 stroke (2). The meaning of (1) is good or beautiful (it seems also the name of a county in ancient China) while (2) is ancestor.
(1) http://www.chinese-tools.com/jdd/public/char/9000/8534.gif (2) http://www.chinese-tools.com/jdd/public/char/9000/8043.gif
And (1) is rarely used today compares to (2), either from personal experience or according to google (191,000 vs 61,600,000).
Though most of us thought it might be a beautiful mistake that the original designer used the wrong character on logo, we could not confirm that since it seems no one knows who was the designer. So we stick on the original design.
What I want to say is that, just like Guillaume Paumier mentioned, there'll be no official answer for this question. I also think there's no such thing as the correct version, just like the articles on wikipedia, the logo came from the community and should follow the same spirit, which means it should be "editable" or "evolutionary".
On the other hand, consider the fact that most people are familiar with the original logo, I think it has done pretty well for it's purpose. A 3D version is good but it should do more than just identification? then we might need to discuss about the primary reason about why we need a 3D version?
For instance, the wiki-ball in Wikimania 2007 was served as souvenir, it made us easier to design the "dark side" of the ball (the point was entertaining :P). However, if we want to make an "official" 3D design of the logo, perhaps we could do it the community way (the whole vote, discuss or even committee things)? just an idea.
BTW, if I remember correctly, the logo was not exactly round but a little but ellipse. :P
Best Regards,
Tzu-Chiang