Why the facination with integrated amps?

Grannyring; short signal paths is the equivalent of “unfiltered’” in wine. It sounds like a great idea in theory but in pactice there is little corrollary between it and long-term satisfaction. ‘Built in synergy”? Other than input/output impedence and gain, things that are easily checked for, there is no reason to think such an argument is valid. I could as validly argue the buyer of an integrated has less ability to “season the flavor” by mixing and matching. Class D? I don’t need to go into the sonic deficits of Class D do I? 

I, the OP, am not only aware of wine analogies, but also bicycle analogies. The bicycle industry came up with the idea of compact frames (sloped top tubes for those that don't know bikes) so that instead of needing to manufacture ten frame sizes in 1 cm increments they could instead accommodate 98% of the population with a S, M, L, and XL. This behooved the industry, not the consumer. But consumers were sold on looks and false claims of increased rigidity and speed. Every three or four years the bicycle industry comes up with a new "flavor of the month" to seduce the gullible into ditching what they have and replacing it with the new "best". Aero, integrated brakes, disc brakes, elastomer suspended forks and rear-triangles etc. etc. etc. I, being a skeptic, don't claim to be right, but only offer the humble suggestion that integrated amps are a solution for a problem that never was. Whatever is old is new again. A Krell integrated graced the cover of Stereophile 25 years ago with the immortal caption, "What the Krell?". It failed on measurements and consumer satisfaction despite delivering name cache combined with lower price. Can an integrated offer state of the art sound? Unquestionably yes. Is the fact that every major manufacturer and their sister is offering an integrated a sell-job by the industry? IMHO, unquestionably yes.