Sometimes Hard to Drive Speakers are a Gimmick

It's up to the engineer to watch the impedance curve of their design. Something designed for a big room will use more energy. But it can still have a reasonable impedance curve. Low watt amps make them sound indolent. 

Only commenting on your Zobel curcuit commentary eric; well done.  When I commissioned George Short (then owner/operator of Northcreek speakers/crossovers) to build me a couple of crossovers for our B&W Matrix 801 S2 speakers, I asked him to include switchable (i.e. in /out) Zobel circuits for the woofers as were provided by B&W in the factory crossovers (not switchable, always on).  Interestingly, the woofer Zobel curcuits were eliminated in the Series 3 Matrix 801, IMO one of several reasons why it falls short of the Series 2 version sonically.  In any case, as expected, the Northcreek crossovers dramatically improved the speakers’ sonics and equally as expected, so did the Northcreek Zobel circuits.  Eliminated the switches; Zobels always on.

I think the OPs premise is absurd. No designer worth mentioning adds complexity to a design to achieve a negative attribute. 

Me:  Shows up with evidence, including schematics and stories and impedance plots essentially demonstrating what, why and how. 

@audition__audio  : Makes a statement without a shred of evidence. 

@audition-audio 

+1

I know many electrical design engineers. I have worked closely with dozens and they are focused on the desired outcome. When you are talking about high-end audio...an incredibly competitive field... from a business point of view... there is no margin to do things to make your product less desirable. If speakers are hard to drive... then that is because that is what it took to voice them correctly. 

I would recommend contacting speaker design engineers and talking to them about their design goals and requirements.

I remember back in the 1980's a bunch of nerds could not understand the less than stellar performance on IBM PCs. We talked to an IBM design engineer (I was in graduate school)... He listed the design requirements the top two were: Safety, and compatibility. Things we never thought of ... and everything fell into place when we understood what they were trying to accomplish.