Your advice to speakers designers

Get out of here, imo.

Over time I've come to better understand what drives this hobby.  Stereophile is a better word than audiophile.  It's mostly about the stereo for most people.  It's similar with watch lovers.  It doesn't much matter how well the watch tells time, although it does need to tell time.  Exclusivity, talking points, luxurious looks?  I'm not sure what it's all about. 

I've always wanted the best performance for the money.  Since I'm like 99.9% of people and don't have infinite funds I have to limit what I'm gonna spend.  If I'm gonna spend 10k on a pair of speakers I'd take the ones that have the best performance because they're painted flat black and all the money was spent on the things that influence performance.  I understand that manufacturers have to spend on looks to stay in business.  I don't criticize them for it. 

Yeah, I have about $1k, perhaps a little more, for the upgrades next year. Self-imposed limit for now. So do I upgrade interconnects, power cord (s) or phono stage? Cannot upgrade anything else for this kind of money except maybe cartridge, that I won’t do without upgrading phono and interconnects first. And I am not going to buy anything new. In fact, I will not ever need anything new except perhaps a dac or whatever else they will come up with and maybe a cartridge, though I could get a used one from a reputable seller.
So, looking at it from this angle, I am not interested in future speakers designs at all unless there is something spectacular and relatively affordable. I see a number of $5k - $7k used speakers that would be good enough for me.
Most people, even very dedicated ones, don’t have a lot of money for this stuff. Not 99.9% but 90% for sure.

Start with the most life-like cone material for the mid-range.

Then choose the least number of drivers you think you need. Try to keep the crossover out of the midrange frequency.

Then go for what you believe is the most hear through cabinet.

Compromises, its all about compromises as we wait for the engineering to improve. All speakers are a compromise on reality, some less so.