@trelja Amen!
Far too much of what goes on day to day in the speaker biz seems to me to be based on tradition in one way or another - they’re are accustomed to doing certain things a certain way because that’s the way everyone else has always done them...even at times when the design is in other ways an attempt to appear innovative. If speaker manufacturers would spend less time trying to cash in on the latest speaker-design or appearance trends and focus instead on the ceaseless parade of the same, classic, ordinary design blunders I see repeated over and over, maybe then (at least we audiophiles) might be just as well or better served.
Sometimes it seems to me that speaker design is generally seen by manufacturers as something that should be dallied at - to pick from, cafeteria style, the long list of possible design elements - and come away with something that will separate their line or product from everything else out there...you know, you gotta have something to give you an edge in a crowded market - you know, like a gimmick. The idea of just doing what it may take to get everything right in a given design has seemed to have pretty much gone out the window.