Horn based loudspeakers why the controversy?

I came into a celebrity's JBL Paragon 25 years ago along with a vintage Mc275 and Mc240. Similarly, 13 years ago I was given 2 Mc2105s, and a Mr77.  I added JBL 2405 slot tweeters (alnico) to the Paragon, and use a MEN220 Room Perfect with its electronic crossovers, biamping with the Mc275 - top, and Mc2105 - bottom (made a huge difference).  The most recent addition is a Bryston CP 26 Preamp (great improvement).  Most of my friends are musicians like me, and none fail to be blown away.  However, when live music plays a prominent role in your life, no speaker does everything, and one can enjoy many different brands and models over the years for their own special characteristics.

Honestly, I don't sit around listening to a lot of well recorded orchestra music recorded in well tuned venues. A pair of speakers that replicates that isn't a serious consideration to me and it doesn't require tremendous amounts of imaging capability to replicate that. The vast majority of what I listen to is studio recorded material. I throw 3 things are a stereo to get a feel for it. Tool, Dead Can Dance, and Bassnectar. If Jambi doesn't bowl me over: fail. If the bells in Agape stab me in the ears: fail. If Bassnectar falls apart: fail. I like the set back sound of my Focals. I like their complete sonic absence. Sure, there's things they could do better, but I like what they do and they work well in the space I have. 
I'm well aware Focal aren't for everybody. They tend to have a certain character not everybody likes. What I think I'm seeing here is horns have different uses for different people and spaces. I'd just like to see that fact acknowledged instead of the blind assertion that horns are the ideal for every person in every space for every taste. Been nice debating this, but I'm beyond repeating myself at this point and there's nothing more to be said. 

Kosst BSC made simple (and why it may be important to you)  http://www.salksound.com/wp/?p=42

Does the "cold hard evidence of measurement" actually have anything to do with personal taste in musical tone? Measurements and personal comprehension anomalies aren't completely mutually exclusive, but aren't matching either. If horn loaded speakers are made well, the phase plugs and throat shape, etc., will provide efficiency and projection and that's about it as far as generalizations go since they're not otherwise the same thing (different designs simply sound different)…many modern speakers have moderate "horn loading" recessions around tweeters to make them more efficient, and although generally aren't considered horns per se, certainly do the same thing. Once them pesky high frequencies get released who knows where they go? As long as they get to my earballs somehow I'm fine.

I'm not saying measurements have much to do with personal taste. Some folks love the sound of horns, others huge baffle deals like DeVores and the big BBC clones. Some neither. These Focals I'm listening to at the moment have tweeters mounted in big lenses to manipulate their baffle interaction. The tweeters are called 1 inch inverted domes, but the actual diaphragm is much bigger than that and the main inverted dome is surrounded by smaller inverted domes. The mid-range driver is unusually large for the crossover point used and that leads to them being more directional at the crossover region. Line array theory would suggest that the 3 little woofers couple in their pass band and operate like a single 21" driver in the vertical plane. There seem to be all kinds of ways of manipulating the behavior of a speaker to mitigate or accentuate certain characteristics. I think a lot of modern speakers have improved a lot because more exotic ways of controlling driver behavior have been developed and better understood. I agree that a lot of speakers steal some horn theory and behavior. I also think they do it without the drawbacks and challenges of an actual horn. Is the KEF UniQ driver a horn? I've never heard it called one. I've never heard anybody say it sounds like one. But it does have a compression element and a waveguide. It's probably more of a horn that the tweeter arrangement Zu uses and lots of people call those horns.