The particular Catholics who banned and burned the Wycliffe Bible were those who took part in the English Parliament of 1401 under the leadership of Henry IV, who was a King of England, not the Pope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_heretico_comburendo
I fully share your appreciation that the value of imprimaturs varies hugely, and think that the granting of one to the NAB notes is a particularly good example of this—I have used these very notes as an example of this in class on several occasions. The system of looking to a guide does make sense, one does need to be aware of the guide.
The Sixtine vulgate fiasco makes interesting reading, and in many ways resembles the rushed job on the post-Vatican II liturgy, albeit perhaps with happier results.
Which is just another typical vain sophist attempt to protect your "one true church," since De heretico comburendo (2 Hen.4 c.15, punishing heretics with burning at the stake, was simply that of a RC anointed king and "particular Catholics" obeying the pope!
Canons of the Ecumenical Fourth Lateran Council (canon 3), 1215, convoked by Pope Innocent III with the papal bull Vineam domini Sabaoth of 19 April 1213:
We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy that raises against the holy, orthodox and Catholic faith which we have above explained; condemning all heretics under whatever names they may be known, for while they have different faces they are nevertheless bound to each other by their tails, since in all of them vanity is a common element.
Those condemned, being handed over to the secular rulers of their bailiffs, let them be abandoned, to be punished with due justice, clerics being first degraded from their orders. As to the property of the condemned, if they are laymen, let it be confiscated; if clerics, let it be applied to the churches from which they received revenues. But those who are only suspected, due consideration being given to the nature of the suspicion and the character of the person, unless they prove their innocence by a proper defense, let them be anathematized and avoided by all until they have made suitable satisfaction; but if they have been under excommunication for one year, then let them be condemned as heretics.
Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath.
But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare the ruler’s vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action.
The same law is to be observed in regard to those who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran4.asp)
And your source also states, The Church authorities condemned Wycliffe's translation because they deemed the commentary included with the work to be heretical, and because they feared a vernacular translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate, absent appropriate catechesis, would lead the ignorant laity to reject Church authority and fall into heresy.
I fully share your appreciation that the value of imprimaturs varies hugely,
Canon law places significant weight on such approval and which stamp flows from the Inquisition's ‘Index of Prohibited Books’, and while the Inquisitions provide examples of Rome's unscriptural use of the sword of men to deal with theological nonconformity - which ways and means i think many tradRcs long for - the basic condemnation of this by modern Rome (such as that RC leaders can no longer kill heretics) examples how obedience to the ope in one century can be disobedience in another, while the sanction of liberal "scholarship" of modern Rome even in her own Bible for decades provides further testimony of her being a false church albeit with some true teachings.