You know, as someone who's been around the high end business for many years, and who is also an advocate of the "active speaker design" onthewhole, I personally think it comes down to marketing...just ask Bose.
I think if you had a good product (and there are potentially good active designs floating around out there for home use), and could market it well, you'd have a winner. I think like any of this, it would depend on what the individual companies could do, bottom line.
Again, if Bose can sound the way it does as a speaker line, and outsell everyone to death the way they do, that says a lot!
I personally would like to see the "Big boy's" of High end audio (Thiel, Wilson, and yes, B&W, etc)offer some active designs, and get their retail sales reps/stores to properly sell them.
I sold Meridian for years, and have yet to see one company push that line to success so well in my area, personally. While I don't particularly care for Meridian as a speaker line (always sounded Dark and sythentic a bit to me) I have heard other high end active offerings from companies that are simply stellar sonically. Again, these lines are harly recognized by the public at large, and really only catter to a small nitch pressently.
I think someone would have to step up BIG TIME and push active speakers on a larger scale to really make an impact, and larger change towards more active approaches.
As it is now, you got your "Receiver junkies" who want an "all in one box" with whatever speakers you can "add on" as an after thought running the market for "DIY'ers". Other than Custom, the high end is a lot of 2 channel guy's who like to "tinker with gear", tube amps, vintage turntables, and basically "oldschool". Of course, there's a lot to be said for a lot of the "old School" gear. But I think people are used to what they've been around. I see very few audiphiles or main stream consumers considering or even talking about acive speakers...besikdes maybe a pair of Def Tech's with a powered woofer built in or something. Other than that, again, someone like Bose would have to come out with a completely active line before everyone started jumping ship in regards to speaker line reconstruction. For now, passive speakers are probabaly staying put in peoples homes...sad to say. Like you said, there's are a lot of advantages offered by active speakers, namely compatibility and precision, along with much better improved dynamic capabilities and realism. But as long as people are stuck in their ruts, it's going to take a lot to jar em loose...and that includes the manufacturers
