HiFi lacking social recognition?

It may be time to come out of the audio closet...let's rent a van - white - and pack it with $250,000 worth of gear and drive all the way up and down Bel-Air to show what hifi is all about. One may not be able to wear a pair of speakers like a pair of earings but a Nordost Valhalla as necklace could be the start of the "coming out". And with the help of Lexus, Volvo et al. brands such as Dynaudio or Levinson may make their way up the social ladder...is car audio the Trojan Horse into the Upper Class?

Chadnliz, you are probably right about busy lifestyle vs time to procratsinate and even my buddys in audio retail admit that it is an 80-20 rule again: 80% of their revenues come from 20% of their clientele who can afford very expensive systems either because they are true audiophile or because they heard that Wilson-Spectral or Wilson-Levinson is like Rolls Royce. But they confess that their bread and butter come from average Joes often looking for special financing, lay-aways, ready to go into debt to upgrade their gear way beyond the threshold of disposable income -when they are not unemployed like a few I know!
So, Hifi may make it into Forbes next "Top 10 drugs to blow your bonus on" right after cocaine and way before Oban 14-yr old.

Today, home theater is the draw. Customers go in to buy the TV, and many are made aware that there is a whole hierarchy of audio components. They understand that they are not buying the high end, but they now know it exists, and that there is something there, and there are people (us) who are enthusiastic about it and can tell the difference.

If only this was true for the majority but I seriously doubt it. I think HT and to a lesser extent Ipod are creating a distance between average consumers and audiophiles. My turn to look back and be a bit nostalgic:
30 yrs ago I accompanied my Dad to buy his first real stereo system. There were no Best Buy or similar to go to, the local TV-stereo store was the only place to go. He bought a 4-piece Harman Kardon, a Technics TT equipped with the famous "Concord" cartridge and a pair of big Cabasse. I did not realise but he paid today's equivalent of $20,000 for his gear. Not because he knew exactly what he was buying but because he liked what he listened to and could afford it.
Last Xmas, I came back home and the system was gone - in a box in the attic. He told me he had contacted a salesguy he knew in the new larger local equivalent of Best Buy to find out if/how/where he could get his preamp and amp checked as he had lost one channel. The guy told him that "separates are a thing of the past" and that for the price of fixing his old pre he could sell him a HT receiver that would do it all. He is now running his pair of legendary Cabasse with a $200 5.1 Sony receiver. As he is getting older he thinks his hearing is not as sharp as before and that it does not matter to him anymore - all of his friends have HT receiver anyway so it cannot be bad.
My point is: had he still be able to contact the now closed small shop he bought his gear from 30 yrs ago, he would still have his HK system and his friends would at least know that there are hifi separates out there. But when all you see on flyers inserted into your daily newspaper is HT systems and all you see in the streets is flashy neno-sign for big electronic dept stores, you end up thinking that separates are gone. Unless you are a geek like most of us around here, and sick.