foiled again...

Gunbunny,
You may have lost sight of the forest for the trees. You mention your TV sitting out about 2 feet - if that is a hulking RPTV monolith, that sitting in between the speakers is doing a lot more damage to your soundstage than whether you can get the speakers an extra foot out from the wall. Almost any speaker sounds better (depth of soundstage particularly) a considerable distance out from the wall (on the order of a third of the way into the room). I don't think there really is any significant boundary effect for the port at 2 feet away from the wall. Some towers with side firing woofers (like the NHT 2.9 and 3.3) are designed to be close to the wall. This is for bass response - they still create a better stage moved out. You say you can audition in home - move them in a variety of positions and see if any are unacceptable to you. Can you also take a pair of different design home for comparison?

A TV 2 ft. from the wall? and speakers 22 in. from wall?
DAH? Not good in my opinion. Others may comment.

let's see if I can more clearly illustrate my living room floor plan. The room is 17x18 with another room opening up that makes it about 17x30, except for a 5ft wide wall in the middle.

Right now the TV is backed into a corner, but when I get new speakers I plan to put it against the 17ft wall which all windows by the way. This cuts down on glare. The TV is a Toshiba 57HX81 widescreen RPTV. Yes, it's big. Also on that wall is a 2.5ft wide audio rack that will stay there unless I want to buy all new video cables, and I don't. So I would estimate the speakers would be about 10ft apart and about 10ft from the couch. The screen of the TV is about 2ft from the wall, maybe a few inches more when backed all the way to the wall.

Keep in mind that is my current residence. Won't always be the case so my set up needs to be versatile. I have about $7000 of new furniture in the room. I would have to leave before my fiance' let me do me anything with that.

I would second the recommendation of the Tact. If you like the speakers then keep them, two feet shoud be plenty for most speakers and you don't want to be falling over them. The Tact is the only sure way to make your speakers work in your current room and deal with any problems that might arrive in the future.
The Beauty of the Tact is that it does more than just fix the frequency range it also fixes all reflection and time domain problems, which will do a lot to fix the soundstage destruction mentioned earlier due to the monster TV

Afraid everybody's right here: if you don't get those speakers WAY out in front of the TV you'll be dramatically compromising the soundstaging potential of 2 channel.
I have a decent pair of speakers flanking our TV, and it's fine for that, and DVDs, but sounds like crap, especially when I try to use the Panasonic DVD for CDs.
My reference 2 channel sits in a DIFFERENT room, somewhat smaller than yours (14x24). I sit in a 7.5' nearfield triangle NINE feet out from the front wall, as there's a Steinway B sittin back there. The imaging is spectacular.
Couldn't imagine trying to replicate it in the TV room...who cares? Boston Public, West Wing, and NYPD simply require decent signal-to-noise to enhance dialogue comprehension...that's it.

Sorry to be so cavalier, but perhaps you'll move to a home where you can bifurcate your entertainment. And if so, I'd recommend a used pair of Revel Performa F30 for around $2500 as a fine option.
Cheers.