I personally feel that there are enough good sounding speakers or other high end pieces available at all price points that there is no reason to consider something that does not make a statement in your room or on your rack. Part of the appeal of high end should be to sound better and to look better than ordinary gear, thus contributing to the pride of ownership thing. BTW the speakers I own are the Apogee Duetta Signatures and Vienna Acoustics Beethovens.
Do you listen to your heart or your eye?
There are tons of good speakers out there, not to mention personal preferences, but how many of you buy speakers PURELY based on sound? I have owned over a dozen $10k+ speakers in life, but always wanted to own Sonus Faber Amati for its look. I never once liked the sound at dealer demo, but I contributed the bad sound to equipments and rooms (Classe or Levinson). But convince the SO is much easier with Amati than another square or weird looking box. My yard stick is high, the trust worthy Dynaudio Confidence 5 which has seen no equal after three years. What do I do or what have you done?