Did you listen to old Amati or new Amati Anniversario, and was it in the same room where you heard StradivariThe new model and the same room. Actually didn't find the Anni particularly fussy to set up. The Strads were a bit more complicated to set up(for me at least). Whenever I got the midbass coupling right, my upper mids-tweet would be out of focus; when I got the tweet + bass units coupling, my midbass was off... etc:^)
Kops: dunno about break/burn in. The spkrs I listened to weren't out of a box -- but as you say, maybe they needed more time? They sounded very good to me, in any case.
Why the Strads: because I often listen to large orchestral pieces and the Strad reproduced these with more ease, i.e. more palpably. But that's just me & my musical tastes.
Cheers